The Last Word
by ladylibre
Summary: COMPLETE! Edward enjoys his source of sustenance, and why not? He's providing a service to humanity. Right? I think Isabella might have something to say about that. Non-Canon/OOC. **Judges Pick in Red-Eyed Ed Contest 2015**
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: The author does not own any publicly recognizable entities herein. No copyright infringement is intended.**

 **Hiya! So this was my entry in the Red Eyed Edward Contest, and I am STOKED to share that it won "The Quick Draw," an award from contest judge jdifrans1 (THANK YOU SO MUCH!). All the entries were amazing, so I'm doubly delighted by this win!**

 **And isn't this banner STUNNING?! YellowGlue created customized banners for each winner, and each of them is amazing. I bow to her banner-making brilliance!**

 **Soooo... this Red-Eyed Edward story is one of my favorite things I've ever written, but it's not a warm, cuddly fluff-fest. This journey is winding and bumpy and has been categorized as Tragedy/Hurt & Comfort for a reason.**

 **Consider this your first and only warning—for Edward seldom repeats himself.**

* * *

 **Red Eyed Edward Contest**

 **Title:** The Last Word

 **Penname:** ladylibre

 **Word Count:** 339

 **Rating:** M

 **Summary:** Edward enjoys his source of sustenance, and why not? He's providing a service to humanity. Right? OOC

* * *

 **Volterrean Prison – Present Day**

The guards drag him to the door, neither daring to cross my threshold before scurrying away. Rumors abound about the nature of my "gifts," and I smile at their sprawling inaccuracies.

Humans can be so creative.

The door slams shut, and I gesture vaguely toward the longest wall. "Any last words?"

He blinks at the elegant scribbles beneath the blood splatters, and I suppress a laugh as he stammers a terrified reply. Regrets are as useless as his pleas for mercy, and I have no use for either.

Pardon is a kindness no one deserves.

He struggles against the chains, their discordant clink music to my ears. I embrace his fear, taste it on the air, and streams of venom collect in my mouth. I starved myself for this one, planning a fitting death to haunt him through the hell his eternity holds. This torture will not ease the suffering of the prepubescent boys he ruined—the ones who lived, that is—but it is what I can do.

And I love what I do.

Whipping around to face him with wide red eyes, I am satisfied when his prattling ceases. I bare my teeth for maximum effect, and as I blur to his quavering side, the coward gasps, seizes, and keels over.

I don't even get to use my roar.

Startled by the clarity of his final thought, I lift his crumpled form and tear into his neck in one sloppy bite. Blood gushes from the wound, spilling onto my tattered white shirt, but it matters not. His taste is unremarkable, an encapsulation of his former futility, and I toss his corpse aside, kicking it for good measure.

Swiping my mouth with the back of my hand, I bang on the door with three smart raps. The attending guard curses me under his breath, and I revel in his annoyance. He expected a longer recess so he could finish his pork rinds.

But he is in luck! I too have time for a snack.

* * *

 **Here we go!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer:** **The author does not own any publicly recognizable entities herein. No copyright infringement is intended.**

 **SO THRILLED by the response to the first chapter! I'm honestly ecstatic.**

 **But I should warn you: Ed may be snarky, but this story is marked "horror/tragedy" for a reason. You'll see that reason mentioned toward the end of this chapter, along with a suggestion in my closing A/N if you need it.**

 **Meanwhile let's return to Ed. I believe he has answers to most of your questions.**

* * *

 **The Last Word**

A vampire needs but one thing to live.

One delectable, precious thing.

Finding an endless supply of it, then, is his chief aim. Some of my kind war to secure it, their corpses lying in bitter shards across remote territories where our legend persists among the locals. I have no stomach for combat or desire to risk my life for the sake of sustaining it.

I sought a simpler way.

To achieve selfish success in this blessed country, one needs only a loophole and a greedy sadist to hold it open. In Caius, I found the latter. A public fall from political grace cost him favor with the right, so he did what any self-respecting, disgraced American would do.

He preyed upon a lower sect.

Blustering about personal and societal reform, he attracted the attention of leftist extremists with money to burn and no scruples to lose. During my first and final lunch with a clandestine contributor—whose predilection for elderly women landed him on my radar—I learned of the prison-building project and set my sights its coordinator. Killing Caius posed no challenge, but one does not drain the body that feeds it.

Or so the expression goes.

So I put my telepathic talents to use, learned where the not-so-proverbial bodies were buried, and promised eternal silence in exchange for his Death Row residents, adding a superfluous display of speed and power to prove the point.

The chair in his office still smells faintly of urine.

Naturally he agreed, and that very evening, I engorged on blood until my sclerae were red. These vermin are guilty, immoral, and exceedingly fun to tease.

Most bluster upon entering, their wide eyes determined to ignore my obvious inhumanity and the drain in the chamber's center. Their thoughts race with defiance, full of confidence they will evade the inevitable with a show of force.

They cannot know how insolence infuses the blood with a delightful spice that only increases my thirst. They come to know—but can never share—how I enjoy their useless braggadocio.

Eventually I interrupt their fuming to blithely inquire, "Any last words?" They expect some form of the question, so the effect takes a moment to hit. But with the sweep of my hand toward the blood-stained wall, they see reminders of my flawless record.

They panic, and it is glorious.

It may seem sentimental to record my victims' last words, but my reasons are decidedly different. I must keep a tally somehow, and taking scalps would be gauche and messy. I once experimented with severed limbs but found the odor of decaying flesh unpleasant.

Not to mention the clutter. Oh, how I abhor clutter.

Despite the variance of my victims, I usually hear the same things: "no," "please, God!" or that colorful two-word phrase inviting me to pleasure myself or have them do it for me (I am never sure which).

But every now and then, someone surprises me.

" _Tell Ida her meatloaf sucks!"_

" _There was no carjacking black man. I hocked mama's new car to pay a bookie."_

" _Macho Man Randy Savage! That's who won WrestleMania IV!"_

" _It was worth it."_

Though I killed the serial sniper nonetheless, his reply I respected and honored with a prominent spot beneath the lone window.

No sense regretting what is done.

I immediately demand their bodies be removed—because: clutter—then carve their maledictions into permanence on the wall. The attending guards pretend not to notice, but they burn with curiosity about my quotation collection. Occasionally I invite one to walk in and read a few.

He seldom makes the return trip.

I try not to kill more guards than necessary, leery of endangering my food source with negative attention. But when insolence or duty or boredom demands otherwise, I choose the unmarried and unpopular, cloaking my baseness in benevolence.

"I am doing you a favor, Caius," I purred during our first and only conversation on the subject. "The occasional murder of a guard keeps the rest on guard. Tell me: when is the last time you've had to discipline one for laziness, lateness, or the like?"

He was too terrified to answer.

"Precisely! Besides, better them than you, eh?" I patted him on the back, relishing his repugnance, and returned to my chamber.

Where I dined on the next two guards he sent.

And so pass my days in the Death Row. I have books and music if diversion is needed, and I spend whole weeks away from my castle among the populace. But their selfish nattering grates on my delicate nerves, and I soon crave the peace of my private death chamber.

Today, however, there is little peace to be found.

As was the case last night, an odd restlessness permeates the place. I usually tune out the guards' mental musings, but the unifying unease caught my attention. And as I deployed my talents, I was stunned by their discovery.

Today my meal is female.

Images of a woman with stringy brown hair and rail-like arms pepper their thoughts, punctuated by libelous labels.

 _Alcoholic._

 _Lunatic._

 _Baby killer._

This last one disturbs me, as even the cruelest of my kind avoid that crime unless strictly necessary. I know not why a mother would need to murder her child but forget the question entirely as a mouthwatering scent wafts into my chamber. Its allure is more potent than most blood I encounter but bearable.

It helps that I drained a portly pyromaniac yesterday.

The fragrance accompanies gentle footsteps, their muted cadence surprising me. Usually the condemned raise such a ruckus the walls shake with violence. Now there is but the rattle of chains, the huffing of weary workers, and something else, something that does not belong.

Humming.

Low, contented humming.

The escorting guards are also surprised but make no comment. Our anorexic assassin studies the ground as she walks— _walks,_ not _shuffles_ or _is forcibly dragged,_ I note—but the soulful sound is definitely coming from her.

Perhaps the lunatic label fits.

Through the lead guard's eyes, I see the door to my chamber, and I face the rear window, anticipating the terror-laced shock my scarred and bloody back inspires. Then I recall this extraordinary prisoner is female, an anomaly unlikely to reoccur for some time. And I wish to see her from the moment she sees me.

What is vanity compared to infanticide?

Running an arrogant hand over my mated locks, I turn to the door, venom filling my mouth as her ambrosia becomes close enough to touch.

Exquisite.

As she nears, I zero in on her mind. Instead of an unpolluted stream of callous consciousness, I catch the tenor of her thoughts and nothing else.

This unprecedented blockage pulls a growl from my bowels, and the quartet outside comes to a brief halt. The prisoner gasps, her heart rate tripling as she forces herself forward, and I close my eyes to augment my focus. I have not worked this hard in the last decade, and the required effort vexes me.

She shall pay for this.

After a moment, I am rewarded with wisps of words, their substance a poor recompense for my telepathic toil.

" _Yea….shadow….thou….comfort…."_

Though partly mollified by this peek into her mind, the cadence of this oft'quoted Psalm perplexes me. There should be panic and desperation bordering on delusion. Marking the easy intimacy she instead employs, I therefore conclude she is indeed certifiable. Killing her, now, seems ungentlemanly, beneath me, even—she needs evaluation not exsanguination—but I am afraid it cannot be helped.

She is here.

* * *

 **So we know why Edward is here and more importantly why Bella is here.**

 **Okay. I don't want to spoil anything for everyone, but if you're concerned about Bella's story or where this is going, send me a PM and I'll tell you whatever you want to know. This story won't be all rainbows and unicorns, obviously, but there is a clear ending in mind.**

 **Happy Thanksgiving to all who celebrate, and I'll see you in December! XO**


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: The author does not own any publicly recognizable entities herein. No copyright infringement is intended.**

 **Thanks for your reviews and questions! I really appreciate your interest.**

 **The prisoner has arrived. Let's see what happens now.**

* * *

 **The Last Word**

Two short knocks snap me out of my reverie, and I straighten my posture. "Enter!"

I hear her catch of breath and note her pleasure at my voice. Ignoring her foolery, I fix my glare on the opening door, hoping to scare some sense into her.

But when our eyes meet, I nearly drop to my knees.

She is beautiful, breathtaking even, a ludicrous fact given the wretched state of her hair and dress. Her frame is but skin and bones, and her dirty nails are ragged and short.

But her chapped lips are curved in serenity, her brown eyes devoid of guile. The way she looks at me, _through_ me, is shockingly intense, and I begin to wonder if _she_ is the inhuman one.

"May we go?"

I look up to find the lead guard watching me warily. According to his thoughts, he has been trying to get my attention for some time. "What?"

His dull eyes widen. "Uh, I just…I mean, are you ready to…"

"Go." The word is a growl. "Do not come back unless summoned."

They mutter a response and bolt from the room, slamming the door behind them. The prisoner starts at the sound, but her eyes never leave mine. It seems the more she stares, the more of her mind I hear.

And the less I understand.

" _The Lord giveth….taketh away…. be praised."_

"Are you insane?"

"What?"

Her throaty tenor surprises me more than the realization that I have spoken aloud. "Are you insane?"

She blinks against my rudeness. "Does it matter?"

"No." I lean over her with bared teeth. "But this is my house, and we play by my rules."

Her heart races, but she does not flinch. "Okay. No."

"No?"

"No, I am not insane." She yawns, covering her mouth with the back of her hand. "But I am tired. So if you don't mind."

"Mind?"

"Getting on with this."

"I do not understand."

"You end lives, and I am ready to die, so let's just…" She rotates her finger in a loose circle. "You know?"

"You know what I know?" I drop to a quick crouch, pleased by her short gasp. "The court deprived you of the right to decide your fate. You die when I decide and no sooner."

She blinks at me and smiles again. "So you believe."

"He who knows the truth has no need for belief. Do you want the truth?" I cup her chin, caressing her carotid with my thumb. "You will be delicious."

Her pulse races beneath the skin, and I close my eyes as its rhythm invades my body. It is a lively melody, and I resist the urge to hum its potent song.

Since we like to hum and all.

"Are you waiting for me to beg?" she asks, and my eyes pop open. "To cry or have a fit? Because I can do that, if that's what you want."

"What?"

"I assume you desire some sort of entertainment or display of emotion, something to make all this worth your while. Otherwise you wouldn't be stationed here, eager to rid me of my…"

I release her from my grip, stalking away with a curse. She falls into silence, but her thoughts cosign her languid logic, and I am disturbed beyond articulation.

 _I_ toy with my prey, not the other way around, and this confounding woman will be no exception.

"Tell me about Charlie."

She trembles, the first sign of vulnerability. "Wh-what about him?"

"Let's start with something easy." I place my hands behind my back, relishing her reluctance. "Why did you kill him?"

Her thoughts spike with rage, and I stop short of giggling.

This is more like it.

"I didn't kill him," she mutters.

"No?" I lean against the wall across from her. "That's not what I hear."

"I don't care what you hear." She balls her hands into fists, the familiar Psalm filling her thoughts. "And it doesn't matter now. Charlie is safe, and I will see him very soon."

I do laugh this time. "Is that what you think? That after drugging your infant son in his sleep….Sorry, after trying to drink yourself into a miscarriage, then throwing yourself down a flight of stairs, then drugging your infant son to death, you think you're going to see him again?"

"That's not what…"

"I mean, I know you got 'sober' before he was born." Her nostrils flare at the air quotes. "But according to your journal, you wanted him dead from conception to birth and beyond. I mean…" I tilt my head to one side, lowering my voice. "What kind of monster does that?"

She doesn't reply, and I press my advantage.

"I feel sorry for Jamie." Her head snaps up. "Nursing you through addiction and a difficult pregnancy caused by your carelessness, only to watch you give birth to a defective son. That poor man did everything he could to save you and Charlie, sacrificed so much time and…"

"Lies," she hisses, and her anger arouses me. "All lies."

"So you weren't a raving drunk? You didn't try to kill yourself and your baby by…"

"Those are the facts, yes."

"Then how can you call them lies?"

"Because any group of facts can be repurposed to create lies." She speaks slowly, straining to stay controlled. "But the truth…it is the truth that sets us free."

The wave of peace rolling through her mind stuns me, and I shove its serenity aside. "Nothing can set you free, not from me."

"I am not afraid of you."

I blur to her side, pinning her in place with my crimson gaze. "Your heart rate suggests otherwise."

"Whatever your nefarious plans for my body, I know the pain won't last forever."

"So you think."

She lifts her chin ever so slightly. "Do what you must."

"I always do."

She shudders and closes her eyes, whispering a prayer on a soft exhale. Her reverence is strange, and I am drenched in the urge to destroy it. She possesses a solidity of soul I must dislodge, and the undertaking fascinates and frustrates me. It would be so easy to call her bluff, to nick her wrist with my thumbnail and sip her nectar for the next two hours.

I wonder how peaceful she would be then.

"Why are you here?"

Again she startles me. "What?"

She folds her legs beneath her. "I know how I came to be here, but your appearance is confusing. Tell me your story."

"This is not about me."

"Isn't it? You make your living by killing people"—she scans the room—"with your bare hands from the look of it. I'd say your novelty trumps mine."

She has turned the tables again, and a new plan forms. Forget her wrist. One swift slash across that wiry neck would end the matter.

But there is something to be said for delayed gratification. And I cannot recall the last time I seduced a woman.

I join her on the floor, dropping my voice to a purr. "Tell me about Charlie."

She rolls her eyes. "Are you repeating yourself already?"

"No, I….I want to know about the precious boy you loved."

"Why?"

"Because…" I look around with a sad sigh. "I will be the last thing you ever see, the last one you will ever talk to. Wouldn't you like someone to know the truth?"

She shuts her eyes, and a tear streaks down her ashen cheek. Her sparse brows knit as her train of thought derails, and I assume she has decided not to answer.

Then her husky voice floats across the room.

"I didn't want him, not at first…."

* * *

 **So the prisoner wants to tell her story. I hope you'll join me next time to hear more! xo**


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer: The author does not own any publicly recognizable entities herein. No copyright infringement is intended.**

 **Hi all! I'm sorry for the delay. Two weeks ago, my son had minor tonsil surgery, and now his audacious germs are attacking me. Fun times all around!**

 **But Bella was about to share her story, and I thought it'd be rude to keep her waiting.**

 **Longest chapter so far, so enjoy!**

* * *

 **The Last Word**

"I didn't want him, not at first," she says. "Which made sense because nobody wanted me either. My anonymous mother left me behind a hospital dumpster, and the foster care system treated me like trash. So shacking up with a druggie dropout before I was legal seemed like a step up."

A flare of compassion wells in me, and I stare at the throbbing vein in her neck to stamp it out.

"While I was on the fast track to alcoholism, Jamie perfected the addict act and how to live down to others' expectations. He scammed in plain sight and always got away with it, whatever _it_ was, because he seemed too stupid to think of it in the first place."

"And you were his main victim." Once again my thoughts have escaped me, and I suspect her of sorcery.

Her silent Psalming notwithstanding.

"I suppose," she says absently. "But you wanted to know about Charlie."

At least one of us has the good sense to stay on point.

"Jamie had found a scheming partner in some wily red-head named Vicki-with-an-i, and one afternoon I found them in our apartment together. He didn't even bother covering up, and she just laughed and laughed…"

She picks a stringy hair from her pant leg, and I watch it dangle from her bony fingers. The follicle is dead, and its similarity to her tone makes me fight off a shudder.

"I wasn't trying to kill myself," she continues. "But I was drunk and angry and that top step was always tricky."

I see fragments of the memory in her mind—uncertain if the gaps are her fault or mine—and feel sorry for the broken girl at the bottom of the staircase.

Which makes me want to kill the woman in front of me.

"I had been drunk and depressed for months, suspecting Jamie of all sorts of things. Finding out I was pregnant only increased my paranoia, but I thought my journals were safe."

"Journals?"

"My diaries. They, uh...The prosecution used them to bury me." Her laugh is humorless. "Jamie encouraged me to write, said it would help me heal."

"And you believed him?"

"Of course." She sighs, relaxing again. "But it doesn't matter now."

I flinch at her phrasing. "Why not?"

"What?"

"Why doesn't it matter?"

"Because none of this is about that." A serene hand drifts toward the ceiling. "It's about Him."

"Charlie?"

"Yes, but that's not who I meant."

I refuse to get lost in her logic. "What happened next?"

"While recovering from my fall—which Jamie falsified as a suicide attempt—the doctors let me hear Charlie's heartbeat. I had no insurance and told them not to bother, but Nurse Esme, the kindest woman you could ever meet, thought it would help me connect with him."

She closes her eyes, and I close mine to avoid her loveliness.

"When I heard that rapid _whoosh, whoosh_ , _whoosh_ and realized life had somehow emerged from the hell I had always known…" An idle hand flattens over her sunken belly. "It was the first time I ever thought my existence wasn't some cosmic joke, where I started to believe even a waste of air like me might have purpose."

" _God created each of us on purpose, Edward. On purpose,_ with _purpose. It is our job to discover that purpose and use it to minister love, healing, and…"_

I gasp in horror, covering my widening mouth as the ancient voice echoes within me.

"I know." The woman shakes her head, and I realize she has been talking the whole time. "But 'prenatal care' wasn't exactly on my list of priorities, you know?"

"Yeah. Then what?"

"Well, I was four-and-a-half months along, drunk, and dehydrated, so they had to start with…"

She prattles on about medicinal minutiae, and I ask three dozen questions to forget what just happened. There is no place in my current life for that voice, and I banish it to the bowels of my memory where it belongs.

"At first," she was saying. "I thought I was having a girl and was going to name her 'Belle.' Jamie thought me selfish to name her after myself, but that wasn't the reason I…."

"Belle? Your name is Belle?"

"No." Her cheeks flush, and I ignore my body's reaction. "My name is Isabella."

"Isabella." I roll the syllables around my mouth, letting them dance on my tongue. "Isabella."

"And you are?"

"What?"

"You have my name. Give me yours."

"Why?"

"Why not?"

A simple request, yes? One I should find no reason to deny.

Yet I am loath to share it and cannot fathom the reason why.

"No."

"No?"

"I am your confessor, Isabella, not the other way around. My name is of no importance."

"Fine. I'll make one up." She narrows her eyes to study me, and I straighten for the inspection. "Alastair."

"What sort of name is that?"

She shrugs. "It's the first thing I thought of. And it suits you, I think."

"You are insane."

"Aren't we all?"

She laughs at my expression, and I steel myself against the joy the sound inspires. "Then what was the reason?"

"For…"

"Wanting to name her 'Belle'?"

"A Disney princess. The movie was playing while I was in the hospital, and I thought the name was pretty. Had nothing to do with me."

I bite my lip to detain my reply. "Go on."

"Eventually I was released from the hospital and returned to Jamie's apartment."

"Why would you do that?"

"Because he spent my recovery holding my hand and vowing to take care of me. And in my confused, terrified state, I believed him, of course."

Her tone hardens as she continues, and I shudder against the arousal her anger unleashes in me.

"Anyway, the place was completely cleaned up. New curtains, stocked fridge, and no sign of Vicki. When I walked into our bedroom, there was a new bed and linens, and he'd painted the walls this rich forest green because it was my favorite color. And in the corner of the room… by the window…was a small, white bassinet and an oversized rocking chair." She clenches her hands. "Jamie said whether he was holding me or our baby, he would spend the best days of his life in that chair."

I pounce on her silence. "He was working you."

"Yes."

"The entire time."

"Yes."

"And you didn't know."

"No." She exhales sharply through her nose. "But...no, it's okay. Doesn't matter now."

I slam a fist into the ground, and the concrete cracks spectacularly. "Stop saying that."

She gasps, and I expect her to retreat toward the wall furthest away from me.

So the shock of her frail fingers enveloping my fist sends _me_ to the rear wall, clutching my chest in fright. "What are you doing?"

Her hand is outstretched as if still holding me. "You p-p-punched a hole in the floor. I wanted to see if you were all right."

I do not know which is worse: her concern for her executioner or my skin still humming where she touched me.

Caressed me.

"You…" I swallow hard. "You cannot mean that."

"But I do." Her natural scent deepens with rising sensuality, and I close my eyes to savor it blind. "I really do. I want to know if…"

She falls silent, and I look up to find her staring at me with knit brows. "You're not…" She tilts her head. "I mean, there's no…"

"Well?"

"You're not injured. Not even a scratch. How is that possible…"

She does not wait for a response as she rolls onto all fours in an attempt to stand. Her movements resemble those of a three-legged gazelle, yet I am transfixed by her inelegance. She steadies herself, proudly it seems, and I am too overcome to move.

Otherwise I might applaud.

She walks toward me, her gaze fixed on the hand still pressed against my chest. Her insane thoughts are perfectly logical compared to the sheer stupidity in mine.

No good can come from this. Her end is set, and allowing such frivolities will only postpone the inevitable, likely increasing its sting.

I know this as surely as I idle plastered against this stone wall.

Yet nothing on earth could make me delay or derail this woman's plans.

I watch in fascination as she reaches for me with trembling fingers. Her gaze flicks to my face, gauging my reaction, and I don't care what truths she may glean there as long as she blesses me with this... with the sensation of her warm, willing flesh covering mine with blessed, sensual heat…

The shrill ring of the phone shatters the moment, causing us both to jump. She blinks out of her trance and scurries to the other side of the room, and I stalk to the phone and snatch the receiver from the wall. "What?"

Stammer-filled blathering ensues, and I pinch the bridge of my nose as the terrified female on the other end reports that a last-minute appeal has removed tomorrow's victim from my menu.

"Fine." I truncate her explanations. "Do not call back."

I slam down the phone down, and the metal contraption crashes to the floor, echoing the riot in my heart. I run my hands through my hair, the edges of my eyesight noting the woman's position on the floor, but my focus is elsewhere deployed.

I want to kill her, if for no other reason than to end the chaos her mere presence creates. The scent of her blood is losing ground to the feel of her skin against mine, and I should kill her for dividing my desires.

But beyond that, beneath that, her tale disturbs parts of my soul I long ago buried, and I must kill her before she awakens them once more.

I close my eyes, deny my flesh, and reclaim my purpose. Only children play with their food, and it is time to end this charade.

Her warmth and curiosity be damned.

* * *

 **What do you think? I doubt you'll see Bella and Alastair again before Christmas, but miracles can happen if you believe, LOL.**

 **Love and light to you all! XO**


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer: The author does not own any publicly recognizable entities herein. No copyright infringement is intended.**

 **Happy New Year, everyone! I pray God's absolute best for every single one of you this year, that you will be surprised by something audaciously wonderful.**

 **Meanwhile, I think Alastair has had enough of his prisoner. Let's check in.**

* * *

 **The Last Word**

Behind my closed lids, I see the final scene play out.

I blur across the room.

Grab Isabella by the chin.

Tilt her head to one side.

Bare my fangs before sinking them into her wanting flesh.

Venom hums in my veins at the thought, and I open blackened eyes to find her across the room on the floor where I left her.

But she sings a distracting tune, the same one from earlier. There are words this time, and my heart constricts. The soulful song of grace and redemption yanks me back in time, and I straighten my stance to keep from crumbling.

"What's wrong?"

I blink back to the present and find the silent songbird staring at me.

"What…what do you mean?"

"You look…" Her gaze turns pensive. "Stricken."

I turn away with a laugh. "Your singing isn't that bad."

"Well, Alastair. Your deflection isn't that transparent."

I face her with a growl. "Don't call me that."

"Then tell me your name."

"Tell me why you killed Charlie."

"I told you I didn't."

"And I should believe you?"

She recoils as if slapped. "You don't…you don't believe me?"

"Why should I?" I shrug with a frown. "You deny your guilt yet accept your fate without protest. You ignored visits from your lawyer, filed no appeals, and entered my chamber with anticipation. That is not the behavior of one who is innocent."

Her chapped lips clamp shut, and I stifle a startling flare of guilt. She _is_ guilty, of quickening parts of me best left dead if nothing else, and capital punishment befits that crime.

"I deserve that," she mumbles. "I deserve your doubt, your suspicion. Every other person you see probably claims their innocence, so why…why would I be any different?"

"You are different because I have given you the chance to clear your good name," I reply with less ire. "You would be wise not to squander it."

She nods without conviction but says nothing.

"Isabella, please. I…I would like to know about Charlie."

"Don't do that."

"Do what?"

"Pretend to care. You don't care about me, and I accept that. But don't caress my name and flatter me for your own amusement. I've…" She meets my gaze as her voice drops to a whisper. "I've had enough of that for one lifetime, thank you."

She returns her attention to the floor, and I am grateful. I have no rebuttal, no snarky reply, and from the way she folds in on herself, she has no interest in any I might have to offer. The only thing left to do, then, is kill her.

And the thought is suddenly so reprehensible I can hardly breathe.

"I am sorry."

The words fill the silence, followed by a short gasp. "What did you say?"

I am confused by her question, preparing to say that I didn't say anything, until I realize what must have happened for the nth time since she arrived.

Though I am the immortal predator, this woman is going to be the death of me.

"I am sorry," I repeat (apparently).

She sniffles. "For what?"

"Does it matter?"

"Yes. If you can't tell me what you're sorry for, then you're not really sorry."

"Have you always been this difficult?"

"I don't know. No one's ever given me this many chances before."

The bark of laughter flies from my mouth before I can stop it, and she smiles.

She really, truly smiles.

The sight is so foreign, lovelier still for its rarity, that I want to fall at her feet in gratitude. I settle for sitting across from her on the floor, crossing my legs at the ankles.

"I am sorry for trying to manipulate you." _How strange that I mean it!_ "There is no cause to be deliberately unkind."

"As opposed to the accidental unkindness of my pending death?" My eyes widen, and she waves the words away. "Sorry. I shouldn't have said that. You're just doing your…job."

The last word is a question, and I let her form the rest of it. "What exactly do you get out of this anyway?"

"Does it matter?"

"Is that your favorite question?"

"Do you always answer questions with more questions?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?"

I should not be having this much fun. "You are impossible."

"I am impossible? You are the one who can punch holes in the floor without injuring his fist and has eyes that change color."

"What?"

"Your eyes. They were a ruddy brown when I got here, black a minute ago, and now they're getting lighter again." Her heart races. "See? Impossible."

Her knee bobs up and down as she tries to look away, and I suspect she's working on an answer to the question she knows not how to ask. We are far from the point now, and if there is any hope of returning to it, I must reclaim the reins.

"Why did Jamie come to see you last month?"

She straightens immediately. "What? How…how did you know that?"

"Word gets around." I fold my hands and rest them in my lap. "What did he want?"

"I…I don't know. He never actually said anything." She shivers, a blurry image of his face filling her mind. "He just sat across from me with that face he makes and…"

"Yes?"

"And stared at me."

"Like he did when you came home from the hospital the first time?"

"No. That was different. He was different."

"Different how?"

She closes her eyes, shaking her head minutely. "As stupid as this sounds, he was like someone out of a movie. The rocking chair, the bassinet, the tenderness in his hands when he led me to the bed to sit down…he was different but exactly what I'd always wanted. And he…he gave me everything."

"What does that mean?"

"I was still getting sober, he didn't want me leaving the apartment. Said my fall down those stairs really scared him and he was afraid to lose me."

"So…"

"So I promised to stay put, and in exchange, he brought the world to me. Sobriety coaches, nurses, neighbors. People bringing me food and checking on me while he was at work. And when he was home, he was right beside me: bringing me tea, stroking my hair…"

She trails off, and I don't like it. "Was there more?"

"What do you mean?"

"Was there…" My lips refuse to form the words. "Were you…"

"Was I…"

"Did he touch you?"

"Of course. He'd put on my shoes, hold my hand…"

"Make love to you?"

She blinks. "You're asking if he made love to me?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

I grit my teeth. "It's a normal question."

"No, it isn't. And it's none of your business."

"You're telling me the story of how you didn't kill your infant son and now decide that answering a simple question about the extent of Jamie's deception is inappropriate?" Even I believe my indignation. "Who does that?"

"You're about to kill me for amusement, reward, or an escape from boredom and want to know about my sex life with Jamie? Who does that?"

"So it was just sex then?"

"Why is this so important to you?"

"Why are you so reluctant to discuss it?"

She slips a jagged thumbnail between her teeth. "Why are you asking me this?"

"Because I wish to know. Is that not reason enough?"

"No."

She will not yield, and I cannot divine the truth from her mind. "My name."

"What?"

"If you answer my question, I will tell you my name."

She narrows her eyes. "How will I know you are telling me the truth?"

"Because you know me."

The pronouncement falls between us, weighting the silence with significance. She does not move or speak, and I consider retracting the words and my offer.

Until she looks up at me with those curious brown eyes.

"I do know you," she whispers. "And I want to know your name."

"Then tell me what you're hiding," I whisper in kind. "Tell me about Jamie."

She drops her gaze to the ground, and I wait.

"When you're drunk," she begins softly. "At least, when I'm drunk, there's a layer of numbness between me and whatever's happening. I'm laughing but not tickled inside. I'm talking but without my brain's help. And if I'm touched, I feel but don't enjoy it. Not really, anyway.

"Jamie…he was my first, my only that I can remember, and that part of our lives was never much to look forward to. I always felt like an obligation and one he didn't enjoy. I was plain, boring, and safe, and Jamie would never be satisfied with that."

Her tone shifts toward the end, and I brace myself for what's coming.

"But when I was pregnant and sobering up, when I was too lost and confused to do anything for myself, Jamie was there. He washed my hair, massaged my back and feet, rubbed my belly when Charlie was lodged in an uncomfortable place. And the way he looked at me…it was oxygen. So when he cupped my cheek one night and told me he loved me, how could I resist what followed?"

I swallow past the lump in my throat. "What followed?"

"He made love to me, to every inch of my body and soul. He kissed my lips, my collarbone, the expanse of my widening belly. He touched and caressed me like I was the most precious thing in the world, and with every sigh and whisper, I fell deeper for him. It wasn't our first time together, but oh, it was the first time I understood what it meant to make love. It was the most beautiful night of my life." She meets my eyes. "But it was all a lie."

The pain in her voice hits me squarely in the chest, and were I not already seated I would keel over.

She told me he lied to her. I knew that was the core of his trap. So why did I force her to relive the most painful of all his performances? To torture myself with the knowledge that she has been touched by another? In hopes of a glimpse of her glorious nakedness in memory?

Am I truly so depraved?

She chuckles, wiping a trail of moisture from her eyes. "Aren't you glad you asked?"

I cannot bring myself to answer, to even think of looking at her again.

"No, I…" I sigh heavily, suffocating from the inside out. "I am anything but glad."

"It's all right."

"No. It is wrong and shameful and every deplorable thing. Isabella, I am deeply sorry to have been so careless with your feelings, to have asked you such a personal question. You deserve more than that. So much more."

"Thank you, but I don't need more than that." Her eyes dance despite their sadness. "Well, not much more, Alastair."

She arches a bushy brow in invitation, and I am pleased to accept.

"Edward. My name is Edward."

She pauses, covering her mouth with a hand, and I suddenly fear her reaction.

"Hello, Edward." She seems to savor the words. "It's nice to finally meet you."

The sound of my name on her lips pleases me far more than it should, and I am powerless to do anything but return her widening smile.

What the hell have I done?

* * *

 **So these two just refuse to hurry it up, and I hope you're enjoying the ride. The circumstances here have not changed—he's a murderer; she's a felon on Death Row—but they don't seem to care. And for as much fun as I'm having, neither do I!**

 **See you soon! XO**

 **ps-Pumpkinward fans, I'm working on it :)**


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer: The author does not own any publicly recognizable entities herein. No copyright infringement is intended.**

 **Sorry for the delay! I've been battling random flu-like bugs for the past month, but I think they've finally departed for greener pastures. I also celebrated a birthday, my anniversary, and my grandtwins' birthday, so it's been a blockbuster month.**

 **And what better way to approach its end than with a little Red-Eyed Ed?**

 **Enjoy!**

* * *

 **The Last Word**

"Edward?"

"Yes?"

"Nothing."

I do not reply, restarting the count in my head. If the last six minutes are any indication, she will speak again in about 35 seconds.

"Edward?"

"Yes?"

She giggles. "Never mind."

This time, she's early.

Since learning my name, Isabella has decided that saying it is her new favorite pastime. She uses a different intonation each time—aggressive, curious, indifferent—and afterwards dissolves into what can only be described as excessive glee.

"Edward?"

I don't bother turning from the window. "Yes?"

"I forgot!"

Were she anyone else, I would never have told her my name. Were she anyone else, I would not permit such frivolity with it.

Were she anyone else, she would have been dead two hours ago.

"Edward?"

I sigh. "Aren't you tired of this yet?"

"Nope." She pops the 'p' at the end. "Why? You have somewhere else you need to be?"

She laughs in earnest, and the corners of my lips belie the profound aggravation I feel.

Saints alive, who _is_ this woman?

"Why do you insist on playing this game? Is there something entertaining about my name?"

"Do you know you just rhymed?" Her eyes are alight. "Do you like to rhyme all the time?"

"Isabella…"

"Finally!" She claps her hands. "I was wondering what a girl had to do to get some reciprocity around here."

"Was that the point? To get me to say your name? What a colossal waste of time."

"Says the man vacationing on Death Row."

I part my lips to speak but think better of it. Nothing would be gained by reminding her of her eagerness to die.

An eagerness, I suddenly realize, which has all but disappeared.

"May I ask you something?"

"Of course, Edward." She grins when I turn to face her. "You know, since we're on a first name basis and all."

I fold my hands behind my back. "You may wish otherwise when you hear my question."

"As I said." She yields the floor with a sweep of your hand. "I'm not afraid of you."

I study her expression, marveling at her serenity. "Why not?"

"Because I was never given a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and self-control."

"What?"

"Fear is a choice, Edward. That is, allowing fear to govern my emotions and make my decisions is a choice. And because I know I was not given a spirit of fear, I also know I have the power to make a different choice. So I do. And owning that choice prevents me from giving in to fear." She smiles. "So what did you want to ask me?"

In light of her response, I feel it would be cruel to continue. She has decided to embrace the joy of her final moments, such as it is. If repeating my name provides that joy, why should I object?

My gaze drifts toward the scribbled words on the bloody walls, and I remember there is but one way our time together can end. And nothing is to be gained by pretending otherwise.

I take in the sight of her on the floor, her brown eyes brightened when they meet mine, and for the first time in a long time, I hate my life.

"What's wrong?" Her face falls. "If you don't want me to use your name, I don't have…"

"No, no. It's not that. I actually…"

"Yes?"

"I rather like hearing you say my name."

"Really?"

Why must she light up at the slightest compliment? "Really."

She hugs herself. "Then my work here is done."

"It isn't your work that concerns me."

I take my time joining her on the floor, noting the hitch in her breathing. She does not speak, however, choosing to watch me in silence.

"Isabella," I begin slowly. "Have you forgotten why we are here?"

"You mean because of the trial?"

"No. And I believe you know that is not what I mean."

She glances at me, and I curse myself for extinguishing the fire in her eyes. "Right."

"Well?"

"No, I have not forgotten. And I have not changed my mind about being ready to die."

"Good…I mean, I'm glad. I mean, I'm glad that you understand that I…"

"I know what you mean. And it's okay." Her smile suggests otherwise. "I've made my peace with it."

"Then why do you seem so sad?"

She meets my eyes. "Because it's been so long since I had a friend."

The word reverberates through my body as if an electric, echoing current. My face must register my reaction, for my companion chuckles. "Didn't expect that, did you?"

"No." My ragged reply makes me clear my throat. "You…you consider me a…friend? Me?"

Her gaze wanders off, and I realize she may be as surprised by her admission as I am. "Yes. Yes, I believe I do."

"But you…" I fist my hands in my lap. "You can't."

"Why not?"

"Do I really need to answer that?"

"Because you're going to kill me?" She waves me off. "That's nothing."

"Nothing?" I am on my feet, stalking away from her. "How can you call that nothing?"

"How did you do that?"

" _Nothing_. She has been sent her to die, I have to kill her, and she calls that nothing."

"How are you moving so fast?"

"I thought she was insane but changed my mind. Now I'm sure of it. She is positively certifiable."

"Edward. Edward!"

I turn around to find her white as a sheet. "What's wrong?"

"I don't…I don't…I can't…you just…" She closes her eyes. "What are you?"

"What?"

She takes a deep breath. "You were sitting in front of me, talking. And then you weren't."

"What are you talking about?"

"You!" She raises her terrified gaze to my face. "One minute, you were here, and the next you weren't. I mean, you were, but I could barely see you because you were moving so fast. At least, I think you were. Because you could have disappeared into thin air, and that still wouldn't be the strangest thing I've seen since I've been here. But whatever happened, it was weird, and I can't think, and I don't understand, and I don't know what I'm supposed to…"

"Breathe." I slowly drop to a crouch in front of her, folding my hands so as not to touch her. "It's okay."

"How can it be okay? Either I'm losing what's left of my sanity or you are not human, and I'm really starting to wish I believed I was crazy."

"You're not crazy."

"You just said I was."

"I was being an ass."

"Oh." She blinks. "Well, that makes sense."

I lead her through a few more deep breaths and offer a smile when her heart rate returns to normal. "Better?"

"I'm no longer in danger of dying from a heart attack, so I guess that's something." She leans against the wall. "But I still need answers."

"Not yet."

"Why not?"

I come to my feet again—slowly this time—and turn away. "Would you believe me if I said it was for your own good?"

"I'd believe you believe that." Her lips quirk up in amusement. "But I wouldn't be satisfied with that answer."

"Could you please not press me on this?"

"Am I pressing you? I thought I was just asking a question."

"You are. It's just…"

"You can tell me, Edward." She caresses the name. "I won't judge you."

"You say that now."

"And I'll say it then." I hear the rustle of fabric, a creak of bones, and realize she's coming to her feet. "I know what it's like to tell the truth and have people condemn you for it, to expose yourself completely only to be ridiculed and wounded. I…I would never do that to you."

I bury my face in my hands. "Please, Isabella."

"You promised you'd tell me."

"I did not."

"You should have."

"I gave you my name. Is that not enough for you?"

"Is it enough for you?" The words were gentle, but she may as well have shouted them. "Wouldn't you like the chance to share your secret with someone in no position to use it against you? Someone who wants to know? Someone who cares?"

I shut my eyes to steel myself against the memory, but it is too late.

I am already caught.

" _I would never use the truth against you, Edward. You have to know that. And would it not ease your soul to share your heart with your sire? Moreover, with someone who cares about you?_

"Edward?" She lays a hand upon my shoulder. "You're trembling."

I can only groan in response, and she wraps her arms around my waist from behind, resting her head against the center of my back. If she notices the icy hardness of my frame, she says nothing of it.

"What are you doing to me?"

"I am trying to be your friend," she whispers in kind. "If you'll let me."

"I don't know how."

"Just be here with me."

"Where else would I go?"

Though the question is rhetorical, I feel its force in my gut. And in a rush of clarity, I earnestly wonder:

When she goes, where am I to go? What will I do? How will I survive?

And how did I get to the place where these questions exist?

As she snuggles impossibly closer, I start to believe it is I who flirts with insanity. And the longer I let this go on, the more difficult my return to reality will be.

And that will not do.

"Isabella?"

"Yes, Edward?"

"I am your friend, yes?"

She sighs contentedly. "Yes, Edward."

"Right." I wait a beat. "Isabella?"

"Yes, Edward?"

"Your friend is a vampire."

* * *

 **Guess that's one way to sober her up, LOL.**

 **Look for the next installment in about two weeks. I aim to land this plane by the end of March, but I don't know if these two will let me. We shall see.**

 **Thanks for reading! I'd love to hear your thoughts :)**


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer: The author does not own any publicly recognizable entities herein. No copyright infringement is intended.**

 **Soooo...let's see how Isabella handles Edward's little confession, shall we?**

* * *

 **The Last Word - 07**

I feel Isabella go perfectly still, her sharp intake of breath as my words register.

"Wh-what did you say?"

"I'm a vampire."

She raises her head, and I instantly miss its weight against my back. "You're a vampire?"

"Yes."

"A vampire?"

"A vampire."

Her grip around my waist loosens, and she steps backwards. "You're a vampire."

"Don't panic, okay?" I turn my head slowly so as not to startle her. "I won't hurt you."

"But you're a vampire."

"Yes."

She does not reply, and I think better of facing her. Absorbing this information would take time under the best of circumstances, and despite our recent pleasantness, there is no pretending that our situation is ideal. We are predator and prey, lion and lamb.

Though depending on the moment, it is difficult to tell which of us is being led to the slaughter.

Isabella's heart rate remains normal, which surprises me, but I remain on guard. Humans process shock in various ways, so I should not rule out any number of reactions.

Screaming.

Crying.

Fainting.

But Isabella—a woman who seems allergic to what is normal—does none of these things.

Instead she snorts.

Then giggles.

Then chuckles.

Then breaks out in full-voiced laughter that bounces against the walls of the chamber, blessing every available space with its mirth. When at last I face her, I am stunned to find her holding her stomach as she vibrates with amusement.

I have never been more confused in my life.

"Isabella?"

She points at me. "You're a vampire!"

"Um, yes."

More laughter, this time as she stumbles away from me, resting her back against the far wall. Her mind is lost to me again, and her current behavior borders on the ridiculous.

Perhaps I should revisit that insanity diagnosis.

"A vampire." She wipes her damp face. "My gosh, of course you are! And now it all makes sense."

"What are you…oh, you mean the punching the floor and the…"

She waves me off. "No, no. This is bigger than that."

"I'm sorry. I don't understand."

"Don't you see?" Her eyes brighten with enthusiasm. "I am on Death Row about to be executed for the murder of my infant son, and you're a vampire!"

"Okay. And?"

"And the only world in which any of that makes sense is a dream world." She crosses the room and takes my hands. "Don't you see? This is a dream. This has all been a dream!"

Her sincerity slaps me across the face, and I feel sick. "Isabella…"

"Oh, this is the best news I have had in ages!" She claps her hands, twirling about the room. "All this time, all this time I kept wondering what I had done to deserve such a horrible fate. Why had James targeted me? How could he set me up so thoroughly and without an ounce of remorse? How could I be facing death before my 25th birthday, all because of a lie?

"Then I came in here and saw you, this impossibly beautiful creature who is too fast and too strong to be human. Yet beneath that harsh, borderline impenetrable exterior, I found you to be a kind man with the softest red eyes and most beautiful soul. Yet here you are on Death Row, preparing to kill me!

"But then!" She faces me again. "You tell me you're a vampire, and suddenly it all makes sense. You're a vampire, this is all a dream, and at some point in the near future, I will wake up, and this nightmare of a life will be over!"

"Isabella, please listen…"

"But I wonder why I've been asleep so long. Did I hit my head when I fell down those stairs and enter some alternate state of consciousness? Did some emergency surgery in the hospital go awry and they put me in a medically-induced coma? Yes. That sounds right. Because when I think about it, everything went awry after I left the hospital with James…"

"Isabella!" I blur across the room to get her attention. "I need you to listen to me. Can you do that?"

"Sure, Eddie." She pats my face with a soft smile. "I'll listen to whatever you say. It's not like I have a choice. I mean, if I could wake myself up, I'm sure I would have done so by now."

I run my hands through my hair as I turn away, breathing slowly through my nose to calm myself and restore some sense of order to my frazzled brain.

How could I have believed telling her the truth would be a good idea? How could I have thought that Isabella—the confounding woman who ever received the breath of life—would receive the news like a normal person?

And how am I to make her understand that I am indeed a vampire, she is not dreaming, and the very life she loathes is real and there is no escaping its pending end?

"Eddieeeeee?" Isabella sing-songs at me. "I'm lis-ten-iiiing…"

I stop my pacing and face her once more. "Isabella."

"Yes, Eddie?"

"You think you're dreaming because I just told you I'm a vampire?"

"Mmm-hmm. And because my life has recently been one craptacular disaster after another for no good reason I can see."

I fold my hands in front of my mouth. "This is not a dream, love."

"Love, is it?" She bats her eyelashes. "Eddie, darling, I'm flattered."

"Isabella, I am in earnest. This life—your hospital stay, James's lies, Charlie's death, the trial and everything afterwards—it all happened. Really."

"Nice try, Vampire."

"Okay. What if I could prove I'm a vampire?"

"Even if you did, that wouldn't prove any of this is real. If anything, you would prove I was right."

"Why is that?"

"Duh. Because vampires don't exist in real life."

I survey the room, scrambling for an alternate path. "The walls. Read the names on the walls."

"What good would that do?"

"Studies have shown that humans cannot read in their dreams." I point to a stretch of stone where my handwriting is most legible. "If you can read these names, that will prove this is not a dream."

She folds her arms. "I don't know anything about that so-called study, but I don't see why people can't read in their dreams. They can do everything else."

"They also can't tell time." I hurry toward the door. "I'm gonna get a guard in here to show you his watch. And as you watch the minute hand move, that should…"

"Don't bother." She crosses the room to look out the window. "It doesn't matter what you think you can prove or what logical methods you use. Nothing can convince me this isn't a dream. Not even you, my dear Edward."

I rest my forehead against the door as she begins humming again, hearing the truth in her words. Isabella will not listen to reason, not when this wholly unreasonable possibility is so much better than the awful reality she must otherwise face. Given the choice, I too would take the dream.

And what would it matter? Would it really be so awful to let her believe this is all dream? To let her mentally drift from this world hours before she physically leaves it forever? After the tragic hand she has been dealt, the heartaches she has endured, would this final kindness be so awful?

I needn't close my eyes to hear the answer in my head, the speaker's voice snatching me back in time to a different situation with a similar ethical quandary.

" _I do not understand, Carlisle." I frowned at my sire. "Why must I tell them?"_

" _Because it would be dishonest not to."_

 _I glanced at the trio of blonde vampires, their golden gazes appraising me with far too much interest. "But if I do that, I lose my advantage."_

" _In friendship, son, there is no such thing as advantage. There is only reciprocity, mutuality, and respect. Anything less is not worth having." He placed a paternal hand on my shoulder. "Now is there something you wish to say?"_

 _With a heavy heart, I turn toward the group, ignoring the spike of arousal in their thoughts. "I am a telepath."_

 _The leader, who Carlisle later introduces as Tanya, licks her lips. "How delicious."_

 _And though I loathe the randy directions her thoughts deliberately take, I cannot deny the levity in my heart having made the confession._

 _And my maker proud._

I shake off the memory and focus again on Isabella. Though the lie would be emotionally safer, the truth is what I owe her.

What she always deserves.

"Isabella?"

"Hmm?" When I don't reply, she turns away from the window. "What is it, Edward?"

"Did you mean it?"

"Mean what?"

"Mean it when you said…when you called me your friend."

"Of course I did. Why?"

"And did you mean it…I mean, do you really believe that you can tell when I'm lying?"

Her smile downshifts into suspicion. "What are you doing?"

"I know only a fraction of your story, but that knowledge is enough to make me wish things were different, wish that this were only a dream."

"Edward, what is the…"

"Don't you think that if there were the slightest possibility that this were a dream, as your friend, I would let you believe it? Or if I were lying about this not being a dream, don't you think you would know?"

She holds herself rigid, clamping her lips shut with a shake of her head.

"I don't say these things to hurt you, Isabella. You are…well, you are more than I can adequately describe right now, and I am so sorry to insist on you knowing the truth. But I cannot knowingly allow you to believe a lie."

"Why not?" she mumbles.

"Because you are my friend."

There is a beat of silence in which I fear my words have fallen on disinterested ears.

Until Isabella groans and crumbles into a crying heap on the floor, grabbing her stomach with both hands. "Noooo…"

"Isabella!" I rush to her side. "Are you hurt? Shall I…"

"Don't touch me." She curls into a tighter ball, tears streaming from her eyes. "I know you mean well, but I…I just.…I can't bear the thought of..."

"I understand. But shall I fetch the guard? Get you some water?"

"No, but thank you." She sniffles through her reply. "I just need a minute."

"Okay." I move just out of reach, my body coiled to spring at the slightest indication of her need. Her watery sobs shred my insides, and I curse my maker anew for his useless counsel.

When has honesty ever caused anything but pain? When has defending someone else ever made anything better? And when in all of creation has the good guy ever won anything worth having?

Were he still alive, Carlisle would heartily debate the matter, citing historical and biblical instances to prove his point. I would scoff and turn away, annoyed with his constant attempts to revert my heart of stone into flesh.

In this moment, however, it is I who wins the debate. Carlisle is as dead as Isabella will soon be, and nothing in the world can change that.

Unless…

My sharp gaze darts to Isabella, and my mind conjures a different vision.

Skin no longer pale but white. Bold, unbreakable white. Her brown eyes ruddy and timeless, brightened by the guarantee of eternal life. Her frail body strong and eager to take on this world that destroyed her.

In a flash of clarity, I now see why she is here, why she is truly here. She is to be my redemption, my chance to get it right. She will have the life humanity denied her, and she will share that life with me.

Forever.

"What are you smiling at?"

Her water query interrupts my thoughts, and it takes my best effort to coax my face into neutrality. Isabella has had enough surprises for the moment, and I wish not to overwhelm her. I shall wait until the time is right, until she is primed and ready, then I shall share my good news.

And she will love me for it.

* * *

 **Wow, Eddie. Got it all figured out there, do ya? Only time will tell.**

 **What do you think? xoxo**


	8. Chapter 8

**Disclaimer: The author does not own any publicly recognizable entities herein. No copyright infringement is intended.**

 **Hi all! Thanks for your continued interest in these two crazies. Every time I think I'm about ready to bring this thing toward a conclusion, one of them says something I don't expect and takes us around another mountain. Hopefully you're enjoying the trip as much as I am!**

 **Some of you are wondering how this story will end, and…well, it's not my nature to spoil my stories, but I think I've pretty much given it away already. One of you actually referenced it in your review, so good on you for catching the clue! :)**

 **Meanwhile...back on Death Row...**

* * *

 **The Last Word - 08**

"Forgive me," I finally answer her question. "I was lost in thought."

"It must have been pleasant." She coaxes herself upright. "I've never seen you so happy."

"I apologize."

"For what?"

"For…entertaining happy thoughts in the midst of your pain. I should not be so selfish."

"Then don't be selfish. Tell me."

"Tell you what?"

"What you were thinking about." She tucks her stringy locks behind her ears. "I could use a happy distraction."

"I… Don't you think we have more pressing matters to discuss?"

"Such as?"

"Such as…" I wave an idle hand around, hoping she takes the hint, but she only stares blankly. "My recent confession?"

"Your recent…oh. Oh!" Her eyes widen. "Because this isn't a dream."

"No."

"And you aren't a figment of my imagination."

"No."

"And you wouldn't lie to me because I'm your friend."

"Correct."

"So that means you're…I mean, if I'm to believe you, then…"She swallows hard. "Then yes, I believe we have more pressing matters to...to discuss."

I give her the time to cease her sudden fidgeting, praying her nerves stay on the safe side of fraying. "Is there…do you want to ask me anything specific right now?"

"Are you thirsty?"

Despite myself, I laugh aloud, covering my mouth with shameful hands. "Again I apologize. I just…the directness of your question surprised me."

"Pardon me, Edward, but I think I've got the market cornered on being surprised today."

"Touché."

She watches me with wary eyes, raising her eyebrows in expectation. "Well?"

"Well, what?"

"Are you thirsty? Like, for me?"

"No."

"So you don't desire me?"

I blink at her. "What?"

"I used to read a lot of vampire novels when I was home alone waiting for James to come back from wherever he was. And there's a strong link between bloodlust and sexual desire." She actually blushes. "Or at least there was in those books."

I cannot believe we are having this conversation.

"You shouldn't believe everything you read."

"Is that a no?"

"A no?"

"A 'no, I don't desire you, Isabella' in answer to my question."

I spring to my feet and turn away. "This isn't what I meant by more pressing matters."

"What could be more pressing that your present level of thirst?"

"I told you I wasn't thirsty right now."

"No, you didn't."

"Well, I'm not."

"But your eyes are changing color again—holy crap, your eyes are changing color—so something is going on right now."

 _This woman..._ "Can you ask me something else, please?"

"Okay. Why were you smiling before?"

"Bloody hell. Something else."

"If you aren't thirsty, then how are you going to kill me?"

I stare at her in astonishment.

"What?" she asks.

"Isabella…" I drag a hand down my face. "Perhaps we should just be silent for a while."

"Silent?"

"Yes. We have no choice but to share the same space, but a lot has happened in the past few hours, and I think…I believe it would be best to get some distance."

"Distance?" The question comes out on a laugh. "Edward, this room is 18 feet wide at best. What sort of distance are you hoping to gain?"

"Enough to decide how to answer these infernal questions you ask!"

She looks as if I've struck her, and I instantly regret my tone. "I'm sorry, Isabella. I'm…"

"No, you're right." She scoots backward to the far wall. "This is…why delay the inevitable? I am a murderer, you're my executioner, and the idea of more is just…"

"No!" I blur into her personal space, ignoring her stuttering heartbeat as I take her hands in mine. "Please don't retreat. I'm sorry. I…I want to be your friend but seem adept only at hurting you."

"It's okay."

"No, it's…" I rein in my rage and lower my voice. "It is not okay. I…I did not expect you to be all that you are and am ever at a loss for how to be with you, under these circumstances especially, without devolving into who I do not wish to be."

She frees a hand from my grip and places it against my cheek. "Be yourself, Edward. Who or whatever that is."

I relax into her caress. "I don't know if I know anymore."

"It's not something you know. It's just something you are."

"How can you say that?" I open my eyes and am startled by how close we are. "With everything you've been through, most of which I do not even know, how you can be so sure of who you are?"

"Because I know Whom I have believed."

"What?"

"For this reason I also suffer these things; nevertheless I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that Day." She offers a small smile. "Second Timothy 1:12."

I back away, the echo of her touch still scorching my face. "Second Timothy?"

"Yes." She frowns at my retreat. "Is there something wrong with that?"

"No." _YES._

"Then why do you look like that again?"

"Like what?"

"Stricken." She nibbles on the corner of her bottom lip, and I groan. "What?"

"Please stop."

"Quoting scripture? I'm sorry. I didn't mean to offend…"

"Not that. _That_."

"What?"

"Just…" My gums begin to itch as I stare at her mouth. "Don't bite your lip."

"Why not?"

I swallow hard, fighting the rising images. "Because it will be bad if…"

"If?"

"If you draw blood."

I would not have thought it possible, but Isabella turns a full shade paler. Her mouth goes slack, freeing her lips from danger, and a full minute passes before she can reply. "Draw blood."

"Yes."

"Blood. Because…right. You eat…er, drink blood."

"I have to."

She nods, her trembling hands sliding toward her neck. "So when I asked how you were going to kill me…"

"Isabella…"

"You're going to…I mean, the plan is to…" She laughs harshly. "I can't even say it."

"Please don't."

"But was that…I mean, is that the plan? You're going to eat…um, uh…drink my bl...drink…me?"

A different sort of image floods my mind, and I growl low in my throat. She gasps sharply, and I will myself to calm down as I meet her gaze. "That _was_ the plan, yes."

"Was?"

"Was."

We stare across the gap of confusion between us, and I pray her next words provide a safe segue to the answers I long to give her.

"How?"

I barely hear her. "What?"

"How would you do it?"

"I don't understand."

"How would you drink me?"

Her sorrowful tone erodes my inappropriate arousal, and I sober quickly. "I told you that _was_ the plan."

"Yes. And how would you have done it?"

"I…I don't know!"

"How have you done it before?" She glances at the red splatters on the wall. "With the others?"

I shake my head. "They don't matter."

"They mattered to someone, I'm sure. And you killed them all." She folds her arms. "And I would like to know how."

"Why does that matter?"

"Why won't you tell me?"

"Because…" I stop short of tearing my hair out. "Because I don't want you to know."

"Why not?"

"Because you couldn't be friends with the person who did what I did."

"I'm a convicted murderer, and you're friends with me."

"You said you didn't do it."

"I didn't, but you didn't know that when we started, did you?"

"I still don't know." I slide down the wall to sit on the floor with bent knees. "Not really."

"You don't believe me?"

"I believe you, but I still want to know the whole story."

"Well, I believe you are my friend, and I still want to know your story."

I rest the back of my head against the wall, closing my eyes. "You're killing me."

"Actually…"

"I know, I know."

She chuckles at my annoyance, and I am smiling in spite of myself. Why I still expect her to proceed normally is a mystery for the ages.

I have all eternity and doubt I'll ever know.

"How about a story for a story?"

I raise my head. "Meaning?"

"You tell me the truth about your past, and I'll tell you what happened with James."

"You first."

She shakes her head. "No deal."

"Why not?"

"Because you already know more about me than I do about you. It's time to level the playing field."

I could point out that with my immortality and telepathy, the field between us would never be even.

But given her ability to bend me to her amorphous will, I think better of it.

I sit up to face her, unsurprised to find her smiling.

"What do you say, Edward?"

With a heavy sigh, I throw up my hands in surrender. "What would you like to know?"

* * *

 **Thanks for reading! See you in about two weeks…or less!**


	9. Chapter 9

**Disclaimer: The author does not own any publicly recognizable entities herein. No copyright infringement is intended.**

 **Thanks for all the love and support! Let's see what Isabella asks him…and how (or if) Edward replies…**

* * *

 **The Last Word - 09**

Despite my leeriness at allowing Isabella's questions, I cannot suppress a shimmer of anticipation. Something about this woman makes me want to shed my layers and bare myself at her feet.

I hope the sight will not scare her to death.

"Let's start with something easy," she says. "Where were you born?"

"In Chicago on a frigid, blustery night."

"Sounds like the beginning of a good story."

"More like a horror story."

"Hey, none of that. We're friends, yes?"

"Yes."

"Well…friends don't let friends describe their lives as horror stories."

"Even if one of those friends is a bloodthirsty monster?" My tone is gentle, but she pales anyway. "I'm sorry."

"You should be. Now stop that."

"Okay."

"So where was I?" She purses her chapped lips. "Oh, yes. Chicago on a frigid, blustery night. Wait. Are we talking about your human birth or the other one?"

"My human birth." How calmly she makes the distinction! "My other birth was quite the opposite."

"Yeah…we'll get to that a little later. Tell me, umm… your first human memory."

I look down. "I'm afraid I can't."

"Why not?"

"My, uh…my other birth erased my human memories. I can't remember that life."

"But you just told me…"

"I unearthed the details of my human birth after my other one when curiosity inspired the search. I learned my parents' names, my boyhood address, and other biographical basics."

"But you don't actually remember any of it?"

"It's for the best."

Isabella starts to bite her lip but releases it. "I'm sorry, Edward."

"Why?" I flick an errant speck of dust from my arm. "My past is long dead."

"But you are not."

"Aren't I?"

"No." Her conviction pricks the center of my chest. "And living without your memories? I cannot imagine something so horrible."

"I should think you would prefer such a fate," I murmur.

"What do you mean?"

"Well…and pardon my impertinence…but with what little I know of your life, I would think you would welcome the chance to forget it all."

She shakes her head. "That is the last thing I'd ever want."

"Are you serious?"

"Of course."

"How can you say that?"

"Why are you yelling?"

"I apologize." This is a bad idea. "I just…I don't understand you."

"You will. In time." She crosses her legs again. "For now, it's my turn to get some answers."

At this rate, I do not wish to speak to her at all. How could she possibly wish to retain the remaining cards of the wretched hand she's been dealt?

Foolish, maddening girl!

But maddening or not, I wish to win her to my way of thinking. And to do that, I must calm down and play her game, keeping my own cards close to my chest.

"May I continue?" she asks gently.

"Yes."

"And you will not become cross?"

"I cannot promise that. But I will do my best to corral my temper."

"Is doing so always difficult for you?"

"Yes."

"So it's not because of me?"

"No, it is definitely because of you. But your ease in vexing me is only partly to blame."

"And the other part is…" A light flashes in her eyes. "Because you're a vampire."

"Yes."

"Tell me about that."

"About what?"

"About being a vampire." She sits cross-legged, leaning back against the wall. "What do you like most about it?"

I part my lips to answer and promptly shut them, awash in confusion.

Any other time I would allude to my power or make a demonstration of speed. When particularly inclined, I might show off my telepathy, repeating the questioner's thoughts with perfect inflection.

But to Isabella…with those earnest brown eyes shining at me…I can do no such things.

I can only be honest.

"Ask me later."

"What was that?"

"Ask me later. I'm not avoiding your question. I just…I want to answer with the same consideration you show in asking. And doing so will take time. So ask me later."

Her slow smile is all the reward I need. "Okay."

"Is it my turn yet?"

"No." She blushes deeper. "You would think vampires would be more patient."

"You would think vampires didn't exist."

"I did. An hour ago."

"My bad."

We pause to laugh at the absurdity of this exchange, our merriment bouncing off the chamber walls, and I cannot recall ever being this diverted. So caught am I in our private party that I do not notice the thoughts of the lead guard until he is knocking on the door.

The booming intrusion strangles Isabella's laughter, and she stares at me with wide eyes. All prior barriers to her mind disappear, and the rush of her thoughts nearly knocks me down.

 _NoNoNoNoNoNoNoNoNoNoNoNoNoNoNoNoNoNoNoNoNoNoNoNoNoNoNoNo_

I come slowly to my feet, and she gasps.

"Isabella, it's okay."

"They w-w-want to come in here and find m-m-m-me alive, and they're going to take you away, and-and-and do it themselves!"

"No, they won't."

"Yes, they will."

"I won't let them. I'm just going out there to tell them..."

"Edward, no. Please..." She reaches for my hands, holding on with more strength than her frailty should allow. "Don't go."

The raw need in her request shakes me to the core, and were the circumstances any different, I would collapse in a heap of wonder.

"I go only to answer the door. I won't leave you."

"But they have their orders, and my time is up, but I don't…I can't…" She shakes her head as her body shivers with similar tremors. "I don't want to die yet."

"I know, love."

"I'm sorry. I just…" She blinks at me. "You know?"

"Yes."

"Oh. Well, is that…I mean, is that okay? With you?"

I almost want to laugh. "Why wouldn't it be okay with me?"

"Well, won't…" She glances at the door. "Won't you get in trouble when they find me still alive?"

"No, love. If anything, it is they who are in trouble for attempting to find you at all."

"Edward…"

"I won't kill them."

"Or hurt them?"

"Or…" The knocking resumes, and I grimace. "…or kill them. That's the best I can do."

"You promise?"

"Cross my heart and hope to die?"

"Edward!"

"Yes, okay. But you must do me a favor in return."

"Anything."

Her breathiness almost derails my thoughts. "Go over there, cover your eyes, and start humming again."

"What? Why?"

"I don't want you to hear anything…unpleasant."

"But what if they try to…"

"Vampire, remember? They can't hurt me." The knocking resumes, and I head toward the door. "Just sit down and hum for me. I promise I'll behave."

Her disbelief is charming, but she obeys, crouching in the far corner with her eyes shut and her fingers in her ear, humming her favorite song. I call her name as I reach the door, but the sacred melody drowns out my voice.

Perfect.

As I turn to the door, my canines drop and my eyes darken. These animals scared her, my precious Isabella, and they shall pay.

Within an inch of their lives, they shall pay.

Through the rear guard's eyes, I watch the lead guard raise his meaty fist to knock again. I fling open the door before he makes contact and grab his hand with a low growl. A satisfying crunch explodes in my ear, and as he howls in pain, his partner has the good sense to flee.

With my free hand, I pull the chamber door closed, wedging a nearby rock between it and the frame. He will not see Isabella this way, and I need her not to see me this way.

Not yet.

As the blood drips between the knuckles of my clenched hand, I hold his horrified gaze and raise the pulp-like mound to my mouth. I lick the red rivulets from our entwined fingers, ignoring his agonized apologies. His blood is one-note, peppered with only the hops he consumes two six-packs at a time, and its taste turns my stomach.

I left alone Isabella for this?

I shove his mangled hand toward his chest, knocking him to the concrete floor. I tower over his simpering form, raising a slender finger to my bloody lips.

"You are upsetting my guest," I whisper. "And that will not do."

"I-I-I-I'mmmm….sssssssooooooo…sooooorrrrrrrrrrrrrrr…."

"Yes, yes, of course you are." I cup his fat chin with my sullied hand, feasting on the fear on his face. "But I only blame you in part. You are here on orders, yes?"

He continues his terrible stammering, and I roll my eyes. "A nod will suffice."

The attempt is painful as I have yet to release his chin from my grip.

"From Caius?"

He parts his lips then decides to nod again.

"I see. Well…if I break your jaw, you will be unable to deliver my message, and that will not accomplish my purposes. A shame, really, for I sincerely long to break your jaw."

I release him with a huff, amused as he tries to stroke his bruised chin with a garbled hand.

"Tell your employer that the next person who approaches this chamber unsolicited will leave through the tower window." I lean over him and bare my teeth. "After becoming my next snack."

The petrified guard stares up at me blankly, releasing his fear and bladder with a childish wail. The pungent odor fills my nose, and I groan in annoyance.

"Clean this up. Then get out."

With one good hand and squishy shoes, he struggles to his feet, and I leave him to his bumbling. Returning to the door, I slide the rock-turned-doorstop aside and reenter the chamber with a smile.

Isabella is in a protective ball against the wall as instructed, humming her little heart away, and I wait until the echo of the closing door causes her to raise her head.

It is a crime how happy I am to see her.

"He lives." I clasp my hands together. "You're welcome."

Whatever relief I feel dissipates when she leaps to her feet with a sharp gasp.

"Edward…" She covers her mouth with both hands. "Oh, my god…"

"What?"

"You…I mean, you're…" She licks her lips and tries again. "There's blood on you."

Shame floods my core as I realize my mistake. I was so focused on eliminating our uninvited guests that I gave no thought to anything else. A cursory glance at my hands and chest before entering was all it would have taken to spare Isabella the ghastly sight.

And now it is too late.

I hang my head where I stand, uncertain of what to do. The uptick of her heartbeat suggests I have upset her to say the least, but I dare not approach her in this condition. It would be vulgar to attempt humor, and leaving for a belated bird bath without addressing the red elephant between us would be worse.

But what can I say? How can I possibly explain what she has just begun to understand? What has just begun to change? I am a monster: on this, there is no debate. But with her, for her, I was starting to see another possibility, another way of living that would cause me far less pain…

A sudden movement snaps me out of my thoughts, and I blink to find Isabella standing in front of me, gripping the hem of her tattered shirt. Her thoughts are lost to me again, which is just as well.

I doubt I have the presence of mind to read them.

"I'm sorry for my reaction," she whispers. "I wasn't expecting…I mean, I wasn't thinking that you would…. Anyway, I'm sorry, and I…"

"Isabella, no. It's my…"

"Here." She tears a strip of cloth from the bottom of her shirt and holds it out with a trembling hand. "I don't have a way to wet it or anything, but you can use it."

"Wh-what?"

"I know it's not much, and it's not very clean. But you can…"

I cover her hand with both of mine, savoring her warmth as it spreads through my chest. She gasps, raising her timid gaze until we are staring at each other. I see her here, feel her here with me in this seminal moment.

But in my mind the world as I know it comes to a halt, and I am somewhere else.

With someone else.

* * *

 **Thanks for reading! See you in a week or two :)**


	10. Chapter 10

**Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer owns everything in the Twiverse. I'm just playing around.**

 **Isabella's latest decision has sent Edward reeling to another time and place. Let's find out where and with whom…**

* * *

 **The Last Word – 10**

 _A forgettable forest somewhere between this world and the next._

 _A clear night on which you could see to forever, a distance I had little desire to travel._

 _There were three campers, nomads really, their lust for nature overriding the common sense that would dissuade them from straying so far from civilization._

 _From where anyone could hear them scream._

"Edward?"

 _It took mere seconds to kill one, the fear from the other two rendering them immobile and unable to escape. Whatever guilt I may have felt in betraying my maker quickly drowned in the intoxicating taste of the first man's blood._

 _And I relished his death._

"Edward, what's wrong?"

 _By the time I came to, the first victim was nowhere to be found and the remaining two were disfigured beyond recognition. Limbs bent at awkward angles, bloody faces frozen in fear._

 _Horrified eyes accusing me beyond the grave._

"Edward, look at me!"

My gaze drifts in the general direction of the feminine voice, but I know it not. She, whoever she might be, is not here.

But he is.

" _Edward."_

 _His smooth tone lacks the censure I expect, yet I cannot meet his golden gaze. My gift becomes a curse as I see the carnage through his compassionate eyes, his focus divided between the victims and their assailant._

 _A kindness I do not deserve._

 _I feel myself retreat before officially deciding to do so, and I step back, aiming to run until I run out of earth._

" _Edward, please." He tries again, his thoughts warm with affection I cannot understand. "Look at me."_

 _I shake my head but otherwise remain still, his unwavering devotion pinning me in place. He speaks, words that make no sense, and I tune him out, unable to hear anything beyond the suffocating guilt in which I am ready and deserving to drown._

 _There is a tearing of fabric, and a crack of a branch as he steps forward, and I look up._

" _Here." He holds out his hand, the bottom of his shirt outstretched in supplication. "It's not much, but… you should clean up."_

 _I gape at him, my insides aflame, and my lips move without intelligible sound._

 _He cannot love me this way. Not now. Not after what I have done._

 _And yet…_

"I'll do it," she says, and I feel the gentle caress of state-issue fabric against my face. The contact startles me out of my memories, and I seek the woman's eyes as she works.

But I cannot catch her gaze as she is wholly focused on her task, her trembling hands in no way deterring her pampering purpose.

"I wish I had some soap," she mumbles. "Or some water at the very least."

I remember her name. "Isabella…"

"Just hold still." Her gaze flicks to mine, turning quickly away. I cannot imagine what she sees in my eyes and haven't the wherewithal to sort it out. "I can do it."

"You don't have to…"

"I want to." She scrubs in earnest, and as I barely feel it, I realize she doesn't want to hurt me. This frail, wisp of a woman is trying not to hurt me. "This happened because you were defending me, so this is the least I can…"

"No." I gently remove her hand from my face. "You mustn't take this upon yourself."

"But those men were coming to hurt me, and…"

"Those men were doing their jobs." I release her slender wrist, placing it at her side. "I was in the wrong."

"I don't understand."

"I know, and that's…that's my fault." I turn away and walk to the window. A thick band of clouds obscures what sun might otherwise deign to shine my way. "My fault entirely."

"Edward. You forget I am a woman who was falsely convicted of her son's murder and was sent here to be executed for it."

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"I know a bad man when I see one. I know how to discern to whom guilt belongs. And you…with those men, you were just trying to protect me."

Her steadfast belief in me rests heavily on my shoulders, and though I long to savor it, I cannot permit such a doe-eyed view. If we…if I am to somehow ask her to endure an earthly eternity with me, then she must know who I am.

She must know the truth.

"You asked me how I did it," I begin slowly. "How I killed the others."

Her heart skips a beat. "Yes."

I walk along the wall, selecting a blood-splattered quote at random.

"This man stabbed his wife 14 times for refusing sex after an appendectomy. I nipped and nicked his neck with my dullest fingernail in 14 strategic locations, letting him bleed to death over the course of two days. His last words?" I meet her gaze. "I'm sorry, Gerta."

She pales, swallowing hard.

I blur across the room, pointing at a section by the door. "He kidnapped two women who thwarted his attempt to rape their friend. By the time the police found them, they were both pregnant and both dead." I held up my index finger. "I sodomized him for three hours, refusing his filthy blood. His last words were a string of expletives punctuated by a gurgled scream."

"Edward."

"Oh! You'll love this." I return to the window, dragging my hand along its lower edge. "In 1988, this man was sentenced to eight years in prison for robbery. Upon his release, he lived as a model citizen for another eight years, all the while plotting his revenge. He learned the judge had trouble conceiving and waited until she was in her third trimester before carving the baby out of her belly with a rusty…"

"Edward, stop!"

"But you knew all this, right?" I move toward her, a predatory bent to my gait. "Given that you know how to discern where guilt belongs."

"That's not what I…"

"So wouldn't you say your _friend_ is the guilty party here? The filthy, unredeemably guilty party in each of these scenarios?"

She covers her ears, shaking her head. "I don't want to do this with you."

"Ah, but you must." I grab her hands and place them against the very skin she tried to cleanse a moment ago. "You must get the full picture of who I am before you can decide my guilt or innocence."

"No, I don't," she grinds out. "I know what I know, and nothing you say can change my mind."

"You lie."

"No. I know we all have a past, but our past doesn't have to determine our future. And if we decide to change, to embrace a new path for ourselves, then we can…"

"God!" I release her in a huff, storming away. "You sound just like him!"

"Who?"

"Carlisle!" It is the first time I have spoken his name in half a century. "You sound…it is as if his spirit lives inside you."

"Is that your father?" I can't speak, and she gasps. "Oh, my…he's your…oh, what's the word…"

"Sire." The word is a groan. "He…he was my sire."

"Was? Does that mean he's…"

"Dead?" A dagger to the heart. "Yes."

"Oh, Edward. I'm sorr…." She comes toward me, and I hold up a halting hand. "What's wrong?"

"Did you…did you not hear anything I just said?"

"Yes."

"So what the hell are you doing?"

"I'm telling you I understand, well, that I can try to. I mean, you lost the man who made you, someone who was like a father to you, I'd imagine. I never knew my father, so I can only imagine what that loss must have done to you, must be doing to you, and I'm…"

"Stop defending me!"

"Edward, I just…"

"No! Stop defending me and making excuses and trying to tuck my shitty life into a palatable package. I am a monster, Isabella. A shameless murdering monster who enjoys the atrocities he commits, so stop trying to turn me into someone else!"

I turn away as the room falls starkly silent. If not for her heavy breathing, I might believe I am alone.

How I wish I was alone.

I rake my hands through my hair, dragging them down my face as I collapse into a heap. I am as far away from her as this modest room will allow, yet I am still too close. If she has any sense at all, Isabella will walk out that door and demand to be transferred to another facility. I doubt they would grant her unprecedented request, but if she leaves, I will fly from this place at once and never return.

She deserves a better death than any I might give her. And the notion of sullying her eternity by tethering her to me is blasphemous.

Yet the greater sin lies in my repudiation of my maker's creed, my determination to render his influence of no effect.

An effort which continually fails.

" _God created each of us on purpose, Edward. On purpose, with purpose. It is our job to discover that purpose and use it to minister love, healing, and reconciliation to others. If we can do that, or at least try to, then we will have discovered the most significant truth about life."_

 _I roll my eyes. "And that would be?"_

 _His golden eyes shine with love. "We are nothing without someone to love."_

"Fine." Isabella sniffles behind me, ambling to her feet. "If that's how you feel, then fine."

I close my eyes, praying she takes the out I have tacitly given and leaves this chamber as soon as her malnourished limbs will allow.

She moves behind me, but from the echo of the sound, she is heading in the wrong direction.

"Get out," I growl.

"No. If you're such a monster with no redeeming qualities, prove it."

"And how would you have me do that?"

"Do it."

"Do what?"

"Do what you came here to do." I whirl around as Isabella comes to a stop in front of me and tilts her head to one side. "Kill me."

* * *

 **Thanks for reading! See you soon :-) xo**


	11. Chapter 11

**Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer owns everything in the Twiverse. I'm just playing around.**

 **Isabella has made quite the request! Whatever will Edward do?**

* * *

 **The Last Word – 11**

My face furrows in confusion, my breath leaves me in a rush.

She cannot have said what I think I heard. "What?"

"Kill me."

She steps closer, and I step back. "What are you talking about?"

"You just gave me this lovely speech about how psychotically awful you are. That you love the kill and live for it." She comes ever closer. "Prove it."

I turn away, cursing myself for not seeing this coming. "You don't know what you're asking."

"Yes, I do. I am ready to die. You are a soulless murder, so let's do this." Another step. "Kill me, Edward."

I swallow another batch of obscenities. "Don't tempt me."

"I'm not tempting. I'm asking." She scoffs. "Surely you can decipher the difference."

I clench my hands into fists, tamping down my fury. "How dare you mock me?"

"Do I sound like I'm mocking you?" She is so close I can feel the wind her movements make. "I am asking you to do what you claim you want to do."

"I never said I wanted to kill you!"

"But if you're a monster who kills without remorse, what am I but one more corpse?"

I nearly vomit; the repulsion is that strong.

"Isn't that what you want? Another notch on your belt?" She turns away, gesturing at the walls. "Why else would you be here? When you could literally be anywhere in the world doing anything else, why else would you be here…doing _this_ … unless it wasn't about adding another kill to your tally?"

"I have my reasons! You don't know anything."

"I know you're full of shit!" Her brown eyes are alight with rage. "And I am done with men who are full of shit. If you can't be who you say you are, then either shut the hell up or be someone else!"

"How dare you!" I blur into her face, towering over her. "How dare you presume to know so much about life when you are…"

"I know so much because I've survived so much! I survived being abandoned by my parents. I survived falling for James and catching him with someone else. I survived falling down a flight of stairs and almost killing myself and my baby. I survived my baby's murder while he lay sleeping beside me in bed. I survived the…"

"You were…" I shrink from the rage in her eyes. "You were in bed with Charlie when he died?"

"Oh, like you give a damn."

"I do. I…" I hang my head, shame coating my words. "God, Isabella, please…please forgive me. You…you're only asking me to kill you because I rejected your attempts to sympathize with Carl…" I swallow past the pain. "With my maker's death. I was wrong to be so callous with your compassion, and I…I ask your forgiveness."

She doesn't speak right away, tapping her foot as that infernal corner of her lip slides back into her mouth. At this point, if she draws blood, I don't even have the right to object. I will just have to control myself.

She mutters under her breath, words I fail to understand, and I give her the space to decide our fate. If she wants nothing more to do with me, I will accept it. I will throw open the prison doors and let her walk away, daring someone to defy me.

I owe her no less.

"It's so strange," she murmurs. "Seeing everything so clearly in hindsight. When it happened, I thought I was going crazy, and from the cocktail James' fed me, it seemed that was the idea. 'Prenatal pills' he called them, but I just remember them making me foggy and reckless. I loved Charlie; I knew I did. But all I could see were my flaws and shortcomings. I didn't think…no, I knew he'd be better off without me. Better off…not here."

She clamps her lips shut, and I wait her out, taking a seat on the floor.

"James said my feelings were normal, that many mothers worry they aren't good enough for their babies. He told me to write it all down, to be honest about my fears and darkest thoughts. And the nurses—well, the people I thought were home care nurses—agreed, said it would help with my sobriety to pour out all the negativity in my soul. So I did. Every crazy, insecure thought went down on the page."

"Including the thought that it would be better for you if Charlie were dead."

The words hurt as much to say as they seemed to hurt Isabella to hear. "I didn't mean it. I mean, not really. I just…I couldn't stop thinking that if Charlie somehow didn't make it, my life would be easier. I wouldn't have to feel guilty about being a terrible mother or always afraid I was going to screw up his life. I didn't want my baby to die. I just…I was just being honest."

"That's what journals are for."

"Yes, or so I thought." She sits across from me, shaking her head. "We were supposed to be talking about you."

"We did." I wrap my arms around my bent knees. "Now it's time to talk about you."

"But this stuff….it isn't about me. It's only what happened to me."

"We are what has happened to us."

"Is that why you're here?"

"What?"

"Did something happen to you and now this is the only place where you feel better about yourself?"

"I'm an indestructible being. Nothing can really happen to me."

"So how did Carlisle die?"

I leap into her face so quickly I startle myself. "What did you say?"

She stammers so much it sounds like gibberish. Her heartbeat is alarmingly fast, and I must retreat before literally frightening her to death. I storm across the room and thrust my face into the narrow space of the window, gasping for air my dead body doesn't need.

Isabella's heart rate gradually comes down, and I hasten my amends.

"I'm sorry," I rush out before she can speak. "There is…I have no excuse for scaring you that way."

She tries to speak again, and I hold up a hand to stop her. "I just…I know you want to know me, that your motives are good, and I…I'd thank you for that if I had the words. But you mustn't… that is, I cannot talk about Carlisle. I just…I simply can't."

"Oh…oh, okay." Her shaky exhale is punctuated by regret. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be." I turn slowly to her, hoping my features have returned to neutrality. "You mean me nothing but kindness, and…it's been a long time since I have felt such unmerited favor."

I watch the reply form on her face and admire her restraint in not sharing it. She is quick, intuitive almost in her ability to understand me, and the similarities between her and _him_ are more than a little unnerving.

"I would imagine so," she says shakily. "I mean, you're not likely to get many thanks for a job well done in here, eh?"

She tries to snicker, and I feel worse. "I'm sorry."

"You said that."

"But I mean it."

"I know that."

"I can't keep doing this to you. I can't keep snarling at your attempts to be friendly."

"I wouldn't call it a snarl. More of an aggressive grimace with a growling chaser."

I blink at her. "Who are you?"

"I should be asking you that, Mr. Vampire. Though…I think I just answered my own question."

"How can you be so cavalier about this? About any of this?"

"You think I'm being cavalier?"

"Aren't you?" I ask without malice. "You seem…I don't know…diverted by this entire situation, as if none of it really affects you one way or the other."

"It doesn't." She fingers the ends of her hair. "I've made peace with my fate."

"Yet you didn't want to die at the hands of the guards."

"That was me being ridiculous. I think I'm entitled to a moment or two."

"You said you didn't want to die yet."

"I didn't."

"Yet you asked me to kill you not five minutes later."

She shrugs. "I knew you wouldn't."

"No, you didn't."

"Yes, I did."

"If that's the lie you need to believe."

"Why would I lie when the truth is more believable? I knew you wouldn't kill me, Edward, but I needed you to know you wouldn't kill me."

"But I may have to," I murmur. "Sooner than I'd like."

"Right. Sooner than _you'd_ like."

"What are you getting at?"

"Don't you see? You have to kill me: it's why we're here. But when I first walked in here, you said I would die when you decide and no sooner."

"And…"

"So how could I die sooner than you'd like if the choice is up to you? No. That could only happen if you're leaving the moment of my death up to me. And that could only happen if you wanted to make sure I was comfortable with the moment when it came. And that could only happen if you cared about my comfort." Her voice is gentler now. "And that could only happen if you aren't the monster you claim."

I press my fingers into my eyes, trying to stop the feelings bubbling in my chest. Her words meander beneath my skin, seeping into me without invitation or inhibition, and I now fear I am the one who may keel over.

I don't know where to cry or laugh, to scoff at her accuracy or rage at her effect on me. Either way, I cannot go on in this manner much longer.

"Tell me what happened," I grind out. "With James and Charlie."

"Are you sure you want to…"

"Now." I raise my gaze to hers. "Please."

She looks torn between hugging me and bolting from the room, evidently splitting the difference. She leans against the nearest wall, clearing her throat. "Um, the journals. There were two of them."

I frown, and she nods in response.

"Yeah, one of the so-called sobriety coaches suggested it. She said the physical separation of my good thoughts from my bad thoughts would help me distinguish between the part of me that wanted to do better and the part of me that didn't. It made sense at the time, though I now think that was the drugs talking."

"How did you…" I clear my throat. "How did you think you were getting sober if James was drugging you?"

She sighs, and I hate myself for asking. "That should have been my first clue that something was wrong, right? I mean, I quit alcohol cold turkey with very little withdrawal? I honestly thought my luck was finally changing after so many years of crap, not that my very sweet and oh so attentive boyfriend was drugging me. The nurses said the 'side effects'—grogginess, moodiness, loss of time—were normal. So I faithfully took the pills, proud of myself for sobering up and excited to meet my son."

Her voice trails off, and I sense the dread in the air. She falls silent, and I am content to bask in it while it lasts. There is bizarre peace in her silence, something I have not felt since…

Since before.

I stare out the window to mark the time, and though she says but an hour has passed between us, I think two is a closer estimation. Either way, it is much too long yet not nearly enough.

I don't think there could ever be time enough.

My thoughts drift to our imagined, immortal future, and a sigh escapes me. We are so happy, blissful even, traveling the world unbidden by time or obligation. I show her a world beyond her imagining, a life she so richly deserves, a love she will have to reciprocate.

"So I hope."

"What was that?" she asks.

I look up. "I'm sorry?"

"Did you say something?"

"No. I was…no." I clear my throat. "But uh…do you wish to continue your story?"

"No." A soft smile in return. "But I must. It's the only way."

"The only way?"

"The only way to set you free."

"And I want that for you," I blurt in earnest. "I want you to be free, Isabella."

"Oh, you sweet thing." Her chuckle is almost maternal. "I appreciate that, but that's not what I meant."

"I don't understand."

"I'm already free." She meets my gaze unblinking. "I mean, it's the only way to set _you_ free."

* * *

 **Sorry to leave this on such an ambiguous note, but I wanted to get this update in before the kids return from their outing with Grandmom.**

 **A lot of words flew around the chamber just now. What do you think?**

 **See you next weekend...I hope! XOXO**


	12. Chapter 12

**Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer owns everything in the Twiverse. I'm just playing around.**

 **I'm sorry for the delay. My beloved Pup fell ill and died within a week, some other personal things happened, and I just wasn't in the headspace to write much of anything. But I'm better now, so here we go.**

* * *

 **The Last Word – 12**

The words are innocuous, but the emphasis she places on them makes me leery. "Set me free?"

"Of course."

"Not to be indelicate, but I am not the one incarcerated."

"Aren't you?"

"Isabella, be serious."

"I am perfectly serious."

"Then explain what you mean." I lean against the wall with indifference. "If you can."

"I can…but I choose not to."

"Why not?"

"Because if I explain it now, you'll just argue with me."

"No, I wouldn't."

Her smile is deliberately slow. "Clearly."

"Isabella…"

"Why don't you just let me tell this story and when the time comes, you can object to my reasons all you want?" She draws her legs into her chest. "It's not as if I'll have the wherewithal to argue with you then."

I now remember the end of this story I'm so keen on hearing, and the realization turns my stomach. "You don't have to do this."

"Are we going back around again?"

"No, I just…"

"Edward, look. We're here now, okay? There's no going back, so let's…let's just keep going."

"What if I don't like where we're heading?"

She shrugs a bony shoulder. "When has that ever mattered?"

The words carry such finality I have no argument to offer. I slide down the wall to the floor, crossing my legs at the ankles. "Tell me about the day Charlie was born."

Her eyes shimmer with tears, yet she smiles. "I remember being wet. My water broke in the bed, it was raining outside, and the bathroom sink in my hospital room had a leaky faucet. I kept thinking that was a good sign—that if rain on your wedding day was lucky, rain while you give birth could be lucky too."

I want to offer a supportive reply, but I'm stuck on a vision of Isabella in a wedding dress: Classic and simple with a hint of her whimsical pluck. Lush, long hair whipping around her glowing face, and as she turns to face me, bright red eyes shine with a love I never thought I would know in this life.

Could I have such a future with Isabella? Could she possibly accept my offer of eternity?

Could I actually bring myself to ask?

"Charlie's birth itself was…" She trails off, and I force myself to focus. "Could I skip that part?"

"Of course, but…"

"Yes?"

"Well…" I haven't been listening, so I don't understand her reluctance. "I would think you'd want to remember the moment you met him."

Her immediate frown proves my error. "How could you say that?"

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said anything."

"No, you shouldn't have."

"I'm sorry."

"I can't talk about it."

"Okay."

"I mean, that's the moment every mother dreams of, the blissful moment you'll remember for the rest of your life, but for me…." Her arms envelop her midsection as she rocks back and forth. "That was the moment I realized something was wrong with Charlie. That after everything I'd gone through, something was wrong with my baby."

"Okay."

"So I don't want to talk about that."

"Okay." I blur to her side and lay a hopefully gentle hand on her knee. "You don't have to do anything you don't want to do."

"But I do. I have to tell my story to set you…"

"You don't have to do anything you don't want to do, okay?" I smooth away her tears with the pad of my thumb. "Not with me."

"You promise?"

The hope in her eyes is more than I bear. "I swear on my life."

She sniffles. "I thought you were the undead."

"I am." I stroke her damp cheek. "Undead means I have life."

"That's not what my novels said."

"Don't believe everything you read." We are so close, less than a breath away, and it would be so easy to close the space between us. I cannot believe the strength of this foreign urge to kiss her, and I force my fingers from her face lest I lose what little decorum remains.

Seducing a grieving mother? Even I cannot stoop so low.

"Are you all right?" I ask, putting a safe but minimal distance between us.

"Yes." She clears her throat. "Though I could use a drink."

I am on my feet. "Caius has some scotch in his office, and I think there may be some…"

"Oh, wow. No. I meant water. A glass of tepid water would be fine."

"I'm sure I can do better than that." I walk to the phone and find it in a shattered heap on the ground. "Right, I forgot."

"It's fine. Forget it."

"What do you mean?"

"Don't go through any trouble on my account. I won't be here much longer anyway and certainly don't warrant any…."

"Don't say that!" My voice bounces around the chamber, and I lower its volume and sense of urgency. "I realize…I mean, I understand the gravity of our situation. But don't cheapen your life by describing its end with such indifference. You are worth so much more than that."

Isabella blinks at me, her mouth gaping slowly open. Her eyes fill anew with tears, and I wonder if I will ever get anything right where she is concerned.

She mumbles something I do not catch, and I am afraid to ask. "Wh-what was that?"

She covers her mouth and shakes her head, her brows furrowing. "Thank you. For…for saying that."

It is my turn to stare as her words burrow into my soul, stealing my ability to speak. She looks up at me during the silence, and I am lost. There are moments that define our lives, changing us forever from the inside out. With one previous exception, all such moments in my life have been negative, destructive.

Deserved.

But this moment…this moment is wholly unlike the others, eclipsing even the lone bright spot of my past as its author is a woman. A frail, broken, wisp of a thing with nothing to recommend herself. Yet here she is, offering truth and gratitude at great personal expense and for what? To somehow set me free when she is the one bound?

It is decided.

I shall make her an offer she mustn't refuse.

"I will get your water." She looks up as if forgetting her earlier request. "But I'll close and lock the door behind me to deter possible mischief in my absence."

"You think I'm mischievous?"

"Extremely. But I was speaking of everyone else."

"Okay." A lovely blush blooms on her cheeks. "Hurry back."

"I will. You won't have time to miss me."

"That's debatable."

 _God, this woman…_

I seem incapable of turning away, but the sooner I leave, the sooner I may return. I offer a another smile and walk out of the chamber at a human pace with her cheerful humming at my back.

Once I shut the door, I press my right hand against a hidden panel on the wall, revealing the elevator to my private quarters. The secret accommodations are clean, modest, and more than suitable for my minimal needs.

But they lack the soft touches a human would appreciate, and I imagine what Isabella would do to improve the space. Would she replace the settee with a four-poster bed? Would she paint the walls or choose a patterned print?

I shake off the thoughts, realizing Isabella will never set foot in this room. Were she to accept the offer I plan to make, we would flee this place on immortal wings, taking our show on the permanent road. I would let her decide where we go first, though in the interest of a healthy transition experience, somewhere remote is a must.

But I am getting ahead of myself. The mission for now is a glass of cold water.

But as I survey the room, I find no glass. Not a cup, mug, thermos, or even a large thimble. Blood drinkers have little use for kitchenware, so the omission makes sense. But I cannot disappoint Isabella and must scramble for a solution.

I run into the bathroom and notice the round crystal bowl in which I keep individually wrapped bars of glycerin soap. Sanitizing the bowl with steaming water, I dry it with a fresh towel and fill it with cold water, hoping this will be sufficient.

But the clean bowl and towel remind me of the comparative filth Isabella retains, and I collect two basins of warm water—one to bathe, one to rinse—a washcloth, and a towel. I place the required toiletries atop the towel, grabbing a thin leather tie to bind her hair. I retrieve a simple change of clothes from my wardrobe, a possessive growl escaping me at the thought of her in them. She may be chilly after her bath, so I snatch the duvet and an accent pillow from the living room chaise. Though I shall soon lay every possible luxury at her feet, this crude assembly will have to do for now.

I arrange the supplies on a sleek chrome serving cart, for which I previously had little use, and close my eyes. According to his thoughts, the nearest guard is in another wing of the prison, and after what happened to the last visitor, everyone else is too terrified to even approach the Death Chamber.

And that is as it should be.

I roll my cart onto the elevator, hating that I have been away from Isabella so long. Though I cannot hear her thoughts, the music of her beating heart greets me through the chamber door, and I savor it a moment undetected. Forever with Isabella demands the end of that unique and precious song, and a pang of selfishness mars my enjoyment of it. I do wish to invite Isabella to spend eternity with me, but the loss of her humanity may be difficult for her to accept.

Moreover, to make such an offer before hearing her whole story would be in poor taste. She is determined to save me—set me free, as she puts it—and the least I can do is let her attempt to finish her stated mission. And to do so, she needs to complete her story.

So I tuck my desires away for the moment, leaving the cart outside as I open the chamber door.

"Isabella, I'm back. Did you miss—"My gaze lands immediately on her, and I am shocked by what I see. "What the hell are you doing?"

* * *

 **Sorry for the cliffie, but you know how these two are.**

 **Let me know your thoughts, peeps. I know it's been a while, but I hope you're still with me. XOXO**


	13. Chapter 13

**Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer owns everything in the Twiverse. I'm just having some fun with her sparkly friends.**

 **To make up for that evil cliffie…and because Midnitereader read and reviewed every chapter of this story today (thank you!)…and because Lotus Wright will divorce me if she doesn't get some answers soon, lol…I'm back a day later with another update!**

 **Please chalk up any mistakes to my desire to get this to you as soon as possible...and my wonky laptop with its skittish cursor that jumps around my documents without warning.**

 **Now let's see what in tarnation is going on in that chamber…**

* * *

 **The Last Word – 13**

My gaze lands immediately on her, and I am shocked by what I see. "What the hell are you doing?"

"Edward?" Her voice is muffled. "Is that you?"

"Yes, it's me!" I set down her drinking water and storm toward her. "What do you think you're doing?"

"It's not what it looks like."

I bite my lip to keep from swearing. "It looks like you're hanging halfway out the window!"

"Oh. Okay, then it is kinda what it looks like."

I drag an irate hand down my face. "What the hell are you doing up there?"

"I can explain that. But um, could you help me down first? This seemed completely necessary at the time, but now it's…it's just embarrassing. And uncomfortable."

"Okay." I clench my fists, breathing deeply through my nose. She is frightened enough without the aid of my agitation. And after I help her down, I will get some answers.

By God, she will give me some answers.

I take a step back and a sober survey of the situation. The window, as it were, is a rectangular hole in the wall. Its width is about half its height, thus Isabella is not halfway out the window: she is more or less wedged between its walls, even her slight frame too wide to fit inside it. Her slight stature makes it impossible for her feet to reach the ground, so their dangling angles make things seem worse than they are.

In other words, she is just stuck.

"Edward!"

"Sorry." I palm the back of my neck. "I'm here. Just thinking."

"And?"

"I can get you down." I note the abrasive texture of the walls. "But it may hurt a little."

"I'm used to hurting by now," she sighs. "Just please get me down."

"Okay." I come closer, resting a hand on her lower back. "I'm going to wrap one arm around your waist to hold you still. With the other hand, I'll grab your…"

"I don't need play-by-play."

"Right."

I secure her body with my left hand, sliding the other between the bottom ledge and the concave expanse of her belly. My chest presses against her back, and the thrum of her heartbeat becomes my own.

"Bring your elbows in," I murmur in her ear. "And cover your face with your hands."

"Why?"

"To keep them from scraping the sides of the wall when I pull you out."

"Okay." I feel the rough tips of her elbows against the back of my hand. "I'm ready."

I tighten my grip around her waist. "Hold on, love."

Backing slowly away from the wall, I pull Isabella out of the window, retaining my grip on her midsection until she is steady on her feet. My arms miss the feel of her already, but the need for answers shoves the ache aside.

"Isabella." She meets my gaze unsteadily. "What were you doing?"

"It wasn't what it looked like."

"Oh, no?" I gesture toward the window. "Because it looked to me like you were trying to throw yourself out of the window."

"And I told you I wasn't." She folds her arms. "Have we reverted to the point where you don't believe me anymore?"

"I want to believe you. God knows I do. But I can think of no other explanation for why you would be so reckless and foolish as to…"

"Air."

"What?"

"I needed some air."

"You needed some air?"

"Yes. I needed some air."

"Then why not just stand beneath the window?"

"You don't understand."

"But I want to." I take a seat on the floor. "So help me."

Isabella stares at me, nibbling that infernal corner of her lip again. When my gaze drops to it, she rolls her eyes and turns toward the window.

"Please, Isabella."

"You don't…" She shakes her head. "You're here by choice. And at any moment, you could walk away. You could choose a different life for yourself."

And I could refute her assessment but choose not to.

"And if someone closes a door on you, you could open it. You can even close doors on other people. But I…I don't have that right, that luxury. When you closed the door, I knew you were doing it to keep me safe. My mind knew your motives were noble and kind. I remembered the light in your eyes when you walked out and was stunned to think I may have been responsible for putting it there.

"But about a minute after you left, I couldn't see the light in your eyes anymore. All I could see was this room, the literal writing on the walls, and I felt like they were closing in on me. Their blood and sins and regrets and last words, and I just…I couldn't breathe.

"And I did what you said: I stood beneath the window and waited for a breeze to find me. But I could still see the walls, and that wasn't helping, so I realized I had to just…not see them for a while. I jumped up and managed to get myself into the window, and after a few deep breaths, I was calm again. But then I couldn't get down and realized I was trapped and just felt really, really stupid."

"And that's partly my fault." I meet her gaze. "And I apologize."

"It's fine."

"No, it's not." I come to my feet and go to her. "I should have been focused on getting you down, not interrogating you for my own selfish reasons."

"I don't think making sure I'm not suicidal is selfish."

"I just don't want anything to happen to you."

She rests a cool hand against my cheek. "And I want to believe that."

"You w-want to? Does that mean you don't believe it?"

She drops her hand. "I shouldn't have said anything."

"But you did." I fight to keep the emotion out of my voice. "And I want to know what you mean."

"Please drop this."

"How can I? How can you say something like that after….after what has happened in here."

"I didn't mean to upset you."

"You don't believe I don't want anything to happen to you? You are a convicted felon sent here to die by my hand, yet here you are, alive and well after more than two hours alone in this chamber with me. Yet you don't believe me yet."

"Edward…"

"I talk to you, open up to you, confess my deepest secrets to you…."

"And I know that was difficult…"

"I protect you, help you out of the window, assault meddling guards for you…"

"I never asked you to do that!"

"…and even leave the room to fetch water and other special things, all in the name of making you as comfortable as possible, but you still don't believe I mean you no harm? How am I supposed to just drop that?"

"And how am I supposed to trust you?" she fires back. "I may be a convicted felon sentenced to die, but do you remember why I'm here? Because some man who said he cared for me and didn't want anything to happen to me killed my son and framed me for it. I'm here because some man told me he was going to work when he was really going to skank it up with another woman. I'm here because some man told me I was entertaining medical professionals when they were really con artists I was too naïve to interrogate. I'm here because some man went in front of a jury and cried about how he tried to keep me sober and sane, but I was too damaged to save. I am here, Edward, because I trusted the wrong man. So you'll have to forgive me if I'm not quite ready to believe in a new man who was excited to kill me some two hours ago!"

She sinks to the ground in a hysterical heap, and I am wrapped around her in an instant. I smooth her hair, too ashamed of myself to speak, and she burrows into my chest, trembling.

"The instant I heard Charlie cry, I knew something was wrong. He sounded as if he was in pain, like he couldn't breathe right or something. The doctors refused to look at me, and their silence only scared me more. I started screaming for answers, and James forced them out of the room, insisting they only talk to him. I thought he was trying to protect me and be the man of the family, but the doctors testified in court that I was disinterested in Charlie from the start, too focused on getting high to be any sort of mother to him."

She sniffles, and I hold her tighter, being so careful not to crush her with my unyielding limbs.

"We took Charlie home together, and Jamie vowed he would take care of everything. I still didn't know what was wrong with Charlie, and Jamie refused to tell me, saying I needed to focus on getting better. He did say the doctors were worried about post-partum depression and gave me more pills for that. I didn't want to take them because I planned to breastfeed, but James said it was more important for me to stay emotionally healthy, that Charlie would be fine with formula. So I kept taking the pills, kept feeling strange and unsettled, and did nothing about it. And because of that…because I didn't see what was happening…Jamie…he killed…my baby…."

She cries in earnest now, deep long wails of an anguish I cannot imagine. Though my body completely envelops hers, this is a pain no human hands can touch, and once again, my thoughts are invaded by a voice I am in no position to handle right now.

" _I know you feel low, Edward." His golden eyes are nothing but sympathetic. "But you don't have to. There is another way to live."_

" _You mean like you?" I spit back. "Doing unto others, turning the other cheek, and all that?"_

" _Yes."_

" _And what does that get you, huh? What the hell does that get you?"_

" _Peace," he says simply. "A peace so deep it eclipses any pain this broken world can inflict. And joy. And gratitude. And love."_

 _I laugh aloud, mocking him with each guffaw. "Yes."_

" _Yes."_

" _And where is that peace right now, Carlisle?" I indicate the bloody mess that surrounds us. "Where is this precious, life-saving peace in the midst of all this?"_

 _He closes the space between us and places a gentle palm over my empty heart. "Right where you left it."_

I shake off the memory, growling in my mind. That peace did Carlisle no favors then and seems of little help to Isabella now.

"The night Charlie died," she murmurs into my chest. "James left early for work, said he was working a double shift and wouldn't be back until the morning. Though he had seemed nothing but attentive to Charlie and me, I was grateful to have some time alone with my son. All the journaling about my guilt and fears seemed to be helping, and I really started to think I could be a good mother to him. I gave him his nightly bottle like always, holding him long after he fell asleep. I just didn't want to put him down for some reason, but as my eyes got droopy, I laid him beside me and went to sleep."

She exhales a shaky breath, and I brace myself.

There is no going back now, and I don't know if I have what it takes to get her through the next part of this journey.

"I'm here," I murmur anyway. "Tell me what happened."

She grips my arm, and I feel her need if not her strength. "Don't let go of me, Edward."

"I'll never let go." I kiss the top of her head. "I promise."

And with Isabella's fragile trust on the line, I will keep that promise if it kills me.

* * *

 **Okay, so technically this is another cliffie, but I promise I'm getting there. And I promise Isabella will answer most of your main questions in the next update.**

 **Still love me? XO**


	14. Chapter 14

**Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer owns everything in the Twiverse.**

 **I have the best readers! You guys show so much love for these two broken vessels, and it just warms my heart.**

 **I must give a shout-out to 2muchtrouble for this observation: "This story is a play with two characters standing on stage." I didn't consciously think of the story this way, but that description is just so perfect, and I love that you see that. So thank you. Thank ALL of you.**

 **Let's continue.**

* * *

 **The Last Word – 14**

Isabella inhales slowly, her heart racing in her chest. I lace our fingers together, pressing my face against her back. "I'm here, love. I'm right here."

She nods, licking her lips, and I close my eyes as she begins to speak.

"When I woke up…" She swallows hard. "I remember how quiet it was. We lived in a noisy, rundown neighborhood with music and yelling and partying at all hours, but that night…it was as if no one else was around. Everything was so quiet and still.

"I had only been asleep a few hours. I remember the bathroom door was closed, which was weird because I have a thing about closed doors, as you know. But the door was closed, so the light didn't shine in our bedroom, and I couldn't see anything, couldn't see Charlie, But I knew he was right beside me, lying on his back as always. So I reached over in the dark and laid my hand on his chest.

"I used to do that all the time, just making sure he was breathing and wanting to feel he was real. And whenever I touched him like that, he used to make this adorable sound. Like…like a little sigh to say, 'I'm okay, Mom. Just sleeping.' And I could always hear it, you know? No matter how loud it was outside or how many sirens passed the window, I could always hear that little sigh.

"But like I said, this night was too quiet. And I could hear everything, if there was anything to hear. And when I laid my hand on his chest…"

"There was no sigh," I finish for her.

"No." She swipes at her damp face with the hand I'm not holding. "No sigh, no sound, nothing. And that's when I realized there was no movement. That his chest was…it was so still and cool and…and hard beneath my palm. Charlie was always so warm and soft—it's why I loved holding him so much. But when I touched him that night, he was just…not right.

"I leapt out of bed and turned on the lamp, crashing into the nightstand because my foot was caught in the sheets. The commotion got the attention of our neighbor who started banging on the wall for me to keep it down. I screamed at her to mind her business and flew back to the bed, scooping Charlie in my arms. His eyes were closed, his mouth a little slack, but he was just…"

She breaks down again, and I whisper honeyed assurances that fall on deaf ears. But I have to stay here in this moment with her. I cannot allow my thoughts to drift to that place from which I have yet to escape.

A place her presence continually unearths.

"I rocked him, kissed him, talked to him, held him, but he…there was nothing. I laid him on the bed and tried to focus. I didn't call 911—and this would become an issue at trial—because I just…I panicked. My head was cloudy, I couldn't think, and I just…I couldn't believe he could have stopped breathing right next to me. It just didn't make sense.

"So as I'm pacing back and forth trying to figure out what to do, the front door opened. I remember thinking that was weird because James was supposed to be at work for the next 12 hours or so. But I also thought this might have been a sign I was dreaming, that for so many unusual things to happen at once, this had to be a dream." She chuckles sadly. "So you aren't the first time I thought life was a dream."

"I wish it were, honey." I caress the hand I'm holding. "God, how I wish it were."

"So Jamie came in and called my name, surprised to find me awake. He dropped his bag by the bedroom door and stopped when he saw my face. He asked what was wrong, and I just shook my head and pointed. 'Charlie,' I said.

"James ran over to the bed and dropped to his knees, pressing his ear to Charlie's chest. 'He's not breathing, Bella,' he shouted at me. 'Why isn't he breathing?' I stammered through my explanation while Jamie performed CPR. I didn't know he knew how to do that and asked him when he learned. It seems a stupid thing to be focused on at that time, but it just struck me as odd. How could I not have known he knew that? And why didn't I know? I was home with Charlie all the time—why didn't he insist I learn too?

"James yelled at me to shut up and go wait for the paramedics. 'You called them?' I asked. 'You didn't?' he roared. 'Why didn't you call them?' I yelled back, 'Because I was scared!' I didn't mean I was scared of what they would do or what they would find out. I was just…scared of the whole situation. But at trial, when James told the jury what I said…they heard it as a sign of guilt."

I feel my eyes darken with rage and focus on her heartbeat to remain calm.

"James yelled at me to call the paramedics while he attended to Charlie. They were there within minutes, and their arrival brought a bunch of onlookers into the hallway. And that woman was quick to report that she had heard a loud crash in our apartment, and I screamed at her to mind her business, then James came home and yelled at me because Charlie wasn't breathing and I hadn't called 911. It was all true, but it…it wasn't what it looked like."

The words slice me afresh, and I release my hold on her. All Isabella wanted was someone to believe in her, to take her at her word. So far, I am little better than James.

"I'll get your water," I murmur as I come to my feet.

"Thanks." She wipes her damp face with the sleeve of her shirt. "You, um….you said you brought other things?"

"Yes." I place the bowl of drinking water in her hands, touched by the amused quirk of her lips. "Some water for bathing, soap and shampoo, a change of clothes, and a blanket."

"A blanket?"

"From the divan in my living quarters. I thought you might be cold after your bath."

"May I have it please?"

"Of course."

She sips the water as I all but skip from the room, grateful to be of any comfort. I drape the blanket around her shoulders, and she shivers pleasantly, setting the empty glass bowl on the floor beside her.

"Thank you, Edward."

"Would you like more water?"

"No, just…" She pats the space on the floor in front of her. "Stay."

"Always," I murmur, but she doesn't notice. I wince internally, remembering my vow not to offer forever until she's ready. But the more I learn of her hell on earth, the more eager I am to show her there's more.

So much more.

"Where, uh, where was I?" she asks.

"The paramedics."

"And the rabble outside my door. Nothing like your world imploding before a live audience."

I scoot close enough that our bent knees are touching. "I'm here."

She holds the blanket closed with a trembling hand. "I know."

I note the bluish tint on her fingers. "You're cold."

"It's okay."

"No, it isn't." I blur into the hallway and retrieve the pillow to stuff into the window. "It should warm up soon."

She murmurs her thanks, sighing again as she resumes her story. "The paramedics rushed into the room where James was rocking Charlie, tears streaming down his face. They took him from James, and he walked them through what he knew. Whenever I tried to speak, he yelled for to shut up, that I had done enough. I thought he was being completely unfair, but what could I do? Charlie was his son too, and he…I figured he was as freaked out as I was.

"It was all an act." She shakes her head. "But a good one."

I shut my eyes to hide the returning rage, resting a hand on Isabella's knee. "How did they…"

"Break the news that my son was dead?" She chuckles humorlessly. "Now that's a moment I will never forget. Couldn't forget if I wanted to."

"And do you? Want to forget?"

"Forget Charlie?" She blinks in confusion. "Why do you keep asking me that?"

"Have I done so before?"

"Yes."

Vampires are supposed to have perfect recall, yet this is news to me.

"Forgive me. I don't mean to be repetitive."

"Then why do you want me to forget Charlie?"

"I don't. I just….I don't know how you live with such painful memories."

She looks down. "Not all of them are painful."

"No, but…" I cannot look at her. "I just wonder if you'd be happier without them."

"Happier?"

"I shouldn't have said anything."

"Hey." She wiggles her knee. "That's my line."

"Maybe I'm turning into you." I chance a glance at her face. "And maybe forgetting wouldn't be the worst thing that could happen."

"I know you mean well, and I'm sure some part of you thinks not having my memories would make my life easier."

"But…"

Her smile is slow but sincere. "I won't be living much longer."

A growl escapes me, and I spring to my feet, stalking across the room.

"Edward?"

I brace my hands against the opposite wall, willing myself to relax. "Just give me a moment."

"Did I do something wrong?"

"No, love. It's…" I shake my head. "You did exactly what you should have done."

"So what's the matter?"

I turn to face her. "I don't know if I can do what I'm supposed to do."

"Meaning what?"

"Meaning there's something I need to tell you, something of supreme importance that just…I would be remiss if I kept it to myself any longer. And I hope that when you hear it, you will give it the consideration it deserves and realize I'm only thinking of your best interest." My brain screams in protest, but I ignore its warning and take a deep breath. "Isabella, I want to offer you the chance to…"

"Can this wait until I'm done?" Her brows are furrowed. "This is the last time I will ever say these things aloud, and now that I'm so far along the trail, I just…I want to finish. Can you understand that?"

Her chastisement is gentle enough that a small measure of relief registers somewhere inside me. I swallow my chagrin, nodding in acquiescence.

"I'm sorry," she says.

"Please don't be." I force a smile. "I gladly yield the floor."

She holds my gaze a beat longer and looks away, blowing out a shaky breath.

"While the paramedics worked on Charlie, James came around to my side of the bed. He knelt beside me, resting his head on my bobbing knee. We watched the medics intently, neither of us able to speak. But there came a moment when James slid to the floor, groaning into his hands. I was about to say something to him, anything to try to comfort him, when the paramedics straightened up and looked at each other, the horrible truth written all over their faces. My heart was ready to seize in my chest, but still I watched them, waiting for them to look at me and say the words that would change my life forever.

"It was then James popped up from the floor, holding something in his hand. 'What is this?' he asked. I barely glanced at him, being so focused on the medical team, but I said, 'One of Charlie's bottles.' He gasped sharply and asked, 'The one you fed him tonight?' I couldn't believe he was bugging me about a stupid bottle when our son's life was… I just couldn't understand why he was so insistent about it."

Her face pinches as an angry tear rolls down her cheek. "So I snapped and said, 'Yes, James. That's the same bottle I fed him tonight. It rolled under the bed because I was too lazy and preoccupied to pick it up.' I wasn't even sure if it was the same bottle, to be honest, but I was just so annoyed at him and didn't really think it mattered."

"But it mattered more than I could have imagined." She looks at me. "Because those were the words that changed my life forever."

* * *

 **Isabella's story continues next week. Thanks for reading! XOXO**


	15. Chapter 15

**Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer owns everything in the Twiverse.**

 **Thank you so much for each and every review and rec you share for this story. It means more than you know.**

* * *

 **The Last Word – 15**

Isabella falls silent then, but she needn't say anything else. My brain speeds ahead, putting the proverbial two and two together, and what remains of my dead heart breaks afresh.

The bastard set her up perfectly.

He discovers the bottle, which surely contains the drugs they will find in Charlie's system, and the paramedics hear her admit that's the one she gave him. They also recall her admission of laziness and preoccupation that night. Coupled with shouting at her neighbor and deciding not to call 911 until James forced her to…

They may as well have jammed the needle into her arm that night.

She sits in front of me, her body bowed as her mind races with memories confirming my assumptions. The barrier between her thoughts and my gift is paper-thin now, and I wonder at the difference. Is that she trusts me so much now? Or does she simply have no defenses left?

The latter notion makes me shudder.

"I'm sorry," she sniffles.

"Honey…" I reach for her hand, pleased to find it warmer than before. "What could you possibly have to apologize to me for?"

"I've violated our agreement."

"What do you mean, love?"

"You were supposed to tell your story first, remember?" She wipes her nose with the back of the other hand. "And I've gone and…"

"You've gone and done exactly what you needed to do." I caress her delicate fingers. "And that is more important than any story I have to tell."

"But I want to know you too, want to know as much as I can before…"

"Don't think of that." I suppress a snarl. "Not until we must."

"We?" She tries to smile. "I didn't realize we'd both been sentenced to die."

The words are flippant but no less painful to hear.

"Our judicial system's evils aside," I begin carefully. "I am invested now, and there's no way out. So yes, _we_ will face that reality when we must. And not a moment before."

That bottom lip makes its way between her teeth once more, but I'm not worried about broken skin at the moment. Her thoughts are jumbled again, straining to make sense of my words, and the effort makes her frown.

"Hey." My gentle nudge makes her look up, and she releases her lip with a ready apology. "No, don't worry about that. I'm in enough control where a little blood won't be a problem."

"Okay."

"I just…" I cradled her hands in mine, wishing I weren't so cold. "You're not alone in this, okay? Whoever we were before, the roles we were forced to play when all of this began, don't matter anymore. There's only you and me and us right now."

"You're sweet, Edward." She pulls back her hands. "But that's not true, and you know it."

"How can you say that?"

She looks behind me. "We are not alone in this room."

I don't have to scan the walls to know what she means. "If I could erase those words, I would. But they don't have to…"

"Oh." Her blush is as lovely as ever. "I guess your previous victims are here in a way, but that's not what I meant."

I cannot fully suppress my annoyance. "Are you about to start quoting Psalms again?"

"Wrong again." She smiles with a shake of her head. "Though you could use a few, I'd imagine."

"Okay, I'm out of ideas." I lean back on my hands. "You'll just have to tell me what you mean."

"I'm afraid you'll be cross with me."

"I promised I wouldn't."

"You promised you'd try not to be."

An incredulous laugh escapes me. "How is your memory better than mine?"

She shrugs a bony shoulder. "Maybe that's my supernatural gift."

"To have a better memory than I do?"

"To challenge everything you think you know about yourself."

I meet her eyes. "That, my darling, is a certainty."

"But that doesn't mean I want to hurt you." Her shaky voice drops to a whisper. "And I'm afraid I must."

"I am not afraid." We seem to be inching toward each other. "And I trust you."

"Do you?"

"With my life. Such as it is."

She holds my gaze, gleaning the truth from it. When at last she's satisfied, she looks down at her hands, surprising to find them enveloped in mine once more. Her warmth is addictive, and I cannot seem to keep from touching her.

But from the warmth in her cheeks, she does not seem to mind.

"I have said that we are what has happened to us."

I expect more, but she seems to be waiting for a response. "Yes. I do remember that."

"And that means we are also _who_ has happened to us, that those people don't leave our lives just because they have left our lives."

"And because of that, Charlie is still with you."

"Yes." She looks at me again. "And I'm not the only one who isn't alone."

She trails off, and even without the gift of telepathy, I now know what she means.

And the urge to flee is so strong that I grip her hands to keep me grounded.

"Edward…" She grimaces. "You're hurting me."

"I'm…shit, I'm sorry." I release her hands and run my own down my face. "I didn't mean to…"

"Stay with me." She rests her hand on my rigid knee. "I know you want to lash out, to run away or hide right now, but just…stay with me, Edward. Feel this with me."

I am shaking my head before she completes her thought. "I can't. You just…you don't know what you're asking."

"I believe I do. I believe that if I can remember the moment the paramedics told me Charlie was dead, if I can envision that moment in my mind and feel its crushing weight in the center of my chest…" She cups my face to keep me still, her earnest gaze boring into me. "If I can sit here and feel that with you, then you can stay here and remember whatever it was that took…"

"No!" I blur across the room, plastering myself against the far wall. "No."

Isabella blinks her surprise, eventually dropping her empty hands into her lap. She laces her fingers together, regarding me with what looks like disappointment. The sight sobers me, but not enough.

Not nearly enough to do what she's asking.

"Forgive me." Ragged breathing punctuates my every word. "Forgive me for scaring you and letting you down and not being the man you think I am, but I cannot…"

"Stop saying that." Her voice is quiet but strong. "Stop saying you cannot do things. You can do all things …"

"And you stop saying that! I do not believe in your Christ and do not have his strength, so those words are of no use to me."

"They could be if you'd let them."

"Really?" I drop elegantly to the floor, crossing my legs at the knees. "Look at these walls. Look at what I have done! You honestly think Christ has any interest in me?"

"He died for you."

The words strike me somewhere they do not belong, and I clench my fists to keep from lashing out again. "No one should ever have to die for me."

Isabella drops her head, rubbing the troubled crease in her forehead. She sighs heavily, and though she mutters unintelligibly under her breath, I believe I have finally silenced her on the matter.

Then she looks up on a sharp gasp, and understanding lights in her eyes as her pretty mouth drops open. "Oh."

"What?"

"Now I get it."

I delve into her mind and get nothing, and the failure frustrates me. "What are you talking about?"

"Never mind." She waves me forward. "We can go back to me if that's what you want."

"No." I am in her face in an instant, towering over her. "You will tell me what you mean."

She raises a defiant chin. "Are you going to force me?"

"Force you? No."

"Then you may want to have a seat while I finish my story."

I rake my hands through my hair, aggravated beyond articulation. "I don't understand you. One minute, you chastise me for not facing my truth. The next, you abandon the idea altogether."

"I never said that."

"But you don't want to discuss it anymore."

"I never said that either."

"For Christ's sake, Isabella!"

"What was that about Christ?"

I shout my frustrations to her savior's heaven, roaring so loudly she is forced to cover her ears. I cut myself off for the sake of her hearing but feel no relief.

Why must she torture me so?

"I am not trying to torture you," she says, because, of course she must say that. "And now that I understand why this subject hurts you so, I no longer wish to press it."

"So you don't want to talk about it?"

"I don't want to force you to talk about it. I was wrong to do that, and I shan't do it again."

It is my turn to blink in confusion.

"So if you are willing, I would like to continue my story now." She adjusts the blanket around her shoulders. "Please."

What can I do at this point but join her on the ground once more? I have clearly lost control of this entire situation and wonder if, in fact, I ever had it.

Current evidence strongly suggests otherwise.

"The paramedics," she sighs heavily. "They said all the right things when they stood up: 'We're so sorry for your loss.' 'We did everything we could.' They danced around the truth with as many steps as it took, but they wouldn't say the words. Not the real words. And the words they used...they didn't mean anything. They just floated toward me, not making any real impact. James was somewhere on the floor falling apart, but I…I couldn't cry. Not yet. Not until they said the words.

"I came to my feet…and to this day, I still don't know where I found the strength…and faced them both. I looked them in the eye, straightened my stance and said, 'Tell me.' They looked at each other, the taller one placing her hands on hips as the other stepped toward me. 'What's your name, ma'am?' he asked. 'My name is Bella, but that doesn't matter because you have stopped working on my son, and I want you to tell me why.' 'Bella, I think it's possible that you may be in shock,' the other one said. 'And I'd like you to take a seat.'

"But I didn't need a seat, and I told them that as kindly as possible. I needed the truth, and I told them that. I needed them to use their words and tell me why they stopped trying to save Charlie. And there was such pity in their eyes at that moment, such deep, pervasive pity….and I don't mean that in a bad way. I mean, people have looked at me all kinds of ways throughout my life—with contempt, confusion, judgment, indifference. But the way they looked at me…no one had ever looked at me like that before…."

She swallows hard, looking at me with watery eyes. "And that was the moment they told me: when they looked at me with that much pity, that much sadness. Because I realized they were looking at me the way I was looking at them, that their expression was a reflection of mine. And if I looked like that, then I knew the truth. So they didn't have to use their words or their hands or anything else to tell me the truth because I already knew. I already knew my little boy was dea…."

The last word comes out on a breathless whisper, and I have her in my arms before she has even spoken it. Her tears are silent but steady, and as she goes limp in my inadequate arms, I wonder how she has survived this long with such pain in her life, how she managed to make it this far without losing what remains of her mind.

And how she reached the point where I am her best chance for finding any peace at all.

* * *

 **Their journey continues next weekend. This is a really rough patch, kids, and I'd be lying if I said it was going to get "better" in the traditional sense of the word. But I love and thank you all for sticking with me anyway. XO**


	16. Chapter 16

**Disclaimer: SM owns everything in the Twiverse. But don't steal my plot—it's rude!**

 **Thanks for all the support for these two kids. Lawd knows they need it!**

 **Please pardon any mistakes in spelling and whatnot. I was in a rush to get this to you.**

 **Lastly, check out the A/N at the bottom. Fun stuff awaits! :)**

 **Now let's continue.**

* * *

 **The Last Word – 16**

I stroke her hair as she falls apart in my arms. The veil to her mind is torn, and I see it all:

Isabella holding herself rigid as the paramedics report Charlie's death.

James on the floor, clutching Charlie's blanket as he cries uncontrollably.

The arrival of the police, their curious glances at the stone silent Isabella as they grill James about the night's events. Isabella is zero help as she sits in the same place where the truth destroyed her life, unable to move. From the outside view, she appears untouched by what is happening, a presumed indifference that would later prove fatal in court.

But the inner story is tragically different.

Isabella is screaming, her insides aflame as if she has already begun the change I wish to soon suggest. Her pain knows no end, there is no relief in sight, and from the moment James produces the bottle he found under the bed, she has but one thought.

 _Kill me now._

The thought is so strong, even in memory, it causes me to jump, rattling her in my arms and alerting her to our intimate position. She sits up and I let her, scooting just far away enough that she can sit upright unaided.

"I'm sorry."

"Please stop apologizing to me."

"I'm sor…" She catches herself and wipes her face. "Okay."

"You don't have to tell me the rest."

"But I want to."

"You can't possibly."

"Not about the arrest and the trial." She tucks her hair behind her ear. "I figure…I mean, I'm sure you can guess what they found in that baby bottle James was so eager to give them. He seemed so shocked by it—'How did traces of your pills wind up in our baby's bottle?' When they officially charged me, he had the nerve to break down in tears again, wondering where everything had gone wrong. And for a moment, I actually felt sorry for him. I thought he was grieving for me."

"Of course you did."

She notes my tone. "You seem cross with me."

"No. It's just...My soul is vexed, and I cannot fully articulate why."

"My story is upsetting, I know. And I apolo…" She smiles. "Never mind."

"Good girl."

"But there is more to this story than pain. And I'd like to continue if that's okay."

I palm the back of my head and try to keep my feelings from spilling out and wounding her. "I think I would rather you didn't."

"What?"

"If you are leaving it up to me—and from your query, I believe you are—I would rather you not continue your story just now."

"Why not?"

I skip my first two responses. "Could we suffice it to say I have my reasons?"

"Sure." Her downcast eyes belie her smile. "If that's what you want."

She readjusts the blanket around her shoulders, and guilt descends on me like a heavier cloak. "I'm sorry."

"I thought we weren't apologizing to each other for being honest."

"We aren't. I just…" I cannot stand to see her disappointed. "I don't want to hurt you."

"Edward, you have done what no man before you has even attempted. You listened, and you care." When her gaze meets mine, the light in them has returned. "And I would never want to make you uncomfortable, even in the name of trying to help."

"This is not to say I do not wish to hear your full story at some point."

"I understand."

"Just not right now."

"And that's okay."

Frustration deepens my voice. "I don't want to ruin the mood."

"You haven't."

"Or drop in your estimation."

"You couldn't."

"I will."

"You truly believe that?"

"Yes." I meet her gaze. "I fear it with all my heart."

"Okay, then. Let's put it to the test."

"What do you mean?"

She rubs her hands together, a delightful tilt to her lips. "Let's play Two Truths and a Lie."

"Two what?"

"Two Truths and a Lie." She arches a brow. "Shall I explain the rules?"

"Even I am not as dense as that." I feign offense to her amusement. "Ladies, first."

"Age before beauty."

"Ha! I can honestly say I have never heard that one before."

"You need to keep better company."

I reach across the space between us, resting my hand atop hers. "I don't think that's possible."

That lovely blush kisses her cheeks, and a load lightens in my heart.

I am forgiven.

"What sort of truths may I tell?"

"Whatever you'd like." She leans back on her hands. "That's the fun of the game."

"And how will you know I am telling the truth about the lie?"

She purses her lips. "Have we not had this conversation before?"

I shake my head. "You think you know me so well."

"In some ways, yes." Her gaze turns serious. "But I'd like to know more."

"How much more?"

She shrugs. "That is not up to me, now, is it?"

"Right."

I cannot believe I am indulging her in this silliness, yet I am more likely to abstain from blood for a year complete than deny her anything.

She is a sorceress. I am all but sure of it.

"Edward…" She sing-songs my name. "You're stalling…"

"I am not."

"Surely having lived…" Her gaze drifts toward the ceiling in thought. "A whole bunch of years, you can come up with something to tell me."

I prepare to zing her with my first three statements, ensuring the lie is something playfully terrible that will delight and shock her.

But as I sort through my memories of this life, I realize there are no such trivialities. In my existence, up to and including the moments since she walked through those chamber doors, I have known but two extremes.

Rage or dejection.

Acquisition or loss.

There is no middle ground, no gray area. And of everything I have so far proven myself capable, I do not know if I am ready to invite Isabella into the painful polarities of my past.

Even in the name of avoiding the rest of her story.

"On second thought." I hope I sound casual. "It is quite rude of me to prevent you from bringing your story to a conclusion. Rude and selfish both."

"What?"

"So let's table the idea of this game for a later time, and you go on and finish your tale." I offer my best attempt at a sincere smile. "Please."

Isabella blinks at me, her muddled thoughts whirring with effort. Abruptly she shakes her head once. "What happened?"

"I'm sorry?"

"What happened just now?" She scoots closer to me. "To make you change your mind?"

"Nothing."

"It's okay. You can tell me."

"There's nothing to tell. I simply changed my mind."

Isabella folds her arms. "I told you I would know."

"Know?"

"If you were telling the truth. That would have applied during the game, and it definitely applies now."

"Isabella, please."

"Why won't you talk to me?"

"Because I don't…" I come to my feet, storming away at human speed. "I don't want to play your game, okay? Why does that have to be something more than it is?"

"You tell me." She rises also, though it requires three times the effort. "If this is going to work, then we have to be honest with each other."

I whirl around to face her. "What?"

"What do you mean 'What'?"

"You said…" I swallow past the lump in my throat. "You said 'if this is going to work…'"

She frowns. 'Okay…"

"What do you…what do you mean by 'this'?"

"This?"

"Yes." I find myself walking toward her. "What does that mean?"

"I don't know." She doesn't look away. "It just felt like the right thing to say."

"No."

"No?"

"No, you can't leave it like that. You have to tell me what you meant."

"But you won't tell me why you don't want to play. You won't tell me why you don't want to hear my story." She shudders as the back of my hand brushes against her warm cheek. "But you want me to tell you what I mean by 'this'?"

"Yes."

Her lips move without sound, and I cannot take my eyes off them.

"Tell me."

"I…I can't explain it."

"Try."

A lone tear trickles down her face. "I want…"

"Yes?"

"I want so much for you." She cups my cheeks. "So much love and joy and peace, and I…."

"Yes?"

"I want to be the one to give it to you. To give you everything you've never known."

The defeat in her tone breaks my heart. "So why are you so sad?"

"Because I can't."

"Yes, you can, love."

"No, I can't." She steps away, and a cool breeze blows between us. "And I need to remember that."

The loss of her touch incenses me, and I clench my hands to keep from grabbing her. "I don't understand you."

"You would." She wipes her face with her sleeve. "If you'd let me finish my…."

"Oh, hang the rest of your story!" I blur to the far wall and ram my fist through it. "Because I know where it's going. It's a tale of redemption, isn't it? The story of how one night while you were lying alone considering suicide, a bright sliver of moonlight shone through your window, and you felt as if God was looking right at you in the midst of your despair. And despite how wretched you felt, despite not even knowing if you could still be considered a living creature or not, you knew in that moment that God had a plan for you. A loving, beautiful plan that could be yours if only you'd surrender your life to Him.

"So you did. You surrendered your life. Gave up your selfishness and lusty ways and decided to use what could have been a curse for His good and glory. And you started to feel better about your wretched life, started to think maybe, just maybe, you didn't die for nothing and could instead use your second life to help people survive their first, no matter how bad it got.

"And you believed that with all your heart. Believed it so much that when a disease-riddled woman begged you to save her sickly son, you didn't think twice about it. Didn't ask yourself if he deserved it or would make a good companion because you were lonely but honest and thought you were doing the Lawd's work.

"So you changed him against what should have been your better judgment. Spent nineteen years trying to reform and change him, but nothing worked. You talked with him, prayed with him, laughed with him, confided in him. You showed him the world and all the beauty it contained. You even introduced him to your best friends on earth, a happy trio of sisters with hearts as beautiful as their faces, only for him to seduce the one to spite the other and destroy the only family you had left. And if that wasn't enough—because why would it be for a selfish sack of shit like him—he resisted your love and compassion at every single turn, rebelled and rejected every possible attempt at conciliation until it finally cost you your life! So don't talk to me about the rest of your story because I already know it ends in death! An unfair, useless, stupid death!"

A roaring in my ears seems to fill my entire body, and I press my hands against the side of my face to block it out. The memories flood my mind, screaming their accusations from beyond the grave, and I can do nothing to stop it. I slide down the wall, tearless sobs wracking my body, and I expect to combust from the sheer weight of it all.

Until a tender hand comes to rest atop my head, accompanied by a kiss to the mass of hair tangled there.

* * *

 **I did not expect this to happen this way. Had it all mapped out completely differently. But Edward happened, so now I have some adjustments to make. Thanks, Alistair, LOL!**

 **And one more AMAZING thing! My dear and crazy-talented friend Jess Molly Brown—she's 'jmolly' in my Favorite Authors—just published her debut novel, a hilarious, spicy romance called "Moms on Missions." Head to Amazon and pick it up. I promise it'll be the best $2.99 you spend this week!**

 **Love you all. See you real soon! XO**


	17. Chapter 17

**Disclaimer: SM owns everything in the Twiverse. But don't steal my plot—it's rude.**

 **My apologies for the delay in posting! My work schedule drastically changed two weeks ago, and I'm having trouble adjusting. But I'm back on track now, so we should be back to weekly updates, give or take a few days.**

 **And I just have to say…I cannot thank y'all enough for your support of my story. I realize it's slow-going, not a lot of action, and essentially two broken people dancing around each other. But they mean so much to me,** ** _this story_** **means so much to me on so many levels, and well…I just appreciate you being here for me. And them.**

 **On we go.**

* * *

 **The Last Word – 16**

I have been touched before.

Fondled and groped, gripped and pummeled.

I have been kissed before.

Ingested, attacked, ravished.

But this touch…

This kiss…

They hit me somewhere altogether different, someplace forgotten and strange, and I know not whether to love her more or lash out at the invasion.

Though the decision hardly matters as I am wholly incapable of thought or motion.

"Shhh…"A hand slides from my head, down my neck and around my shoulders, attempting to rock my stone body. As she continues to shhh me, I hear an unpleasant keening in the room, reminiscent of an animal in acute distress.

And the sound seems to be coming from me.

"It's all right." Her chapped lips pepper continual kisses atop my now trembling head. "You don't have to be strong anymore."

 _When have I ever been strong? Has she met me before?_

"It's okay, Edward." Another kiss and caress. "Let it out."

I have the presence of mind to shake my head but just slightly. She cannot know what she asks, what granting her request would entail.

"Yes, you can."

I shake my head again but with even less conviction. For she has wrapped her frail body around me—her tiny breasts pressed against my back while she breathes for me—and the thought of resisting the sweet peace her body offers ceases to hold any appeal.

Her lips find their way to my temple, fire on ice to melt my resistance. "Just try, honey."

I squeeze my eyes shut on a shaky sigh, and the memories rush through my mind. I give them their leave, adding sound to sight.

"The three sisters…"

She laces her fingers in mine. "Yes?"

"I seduced Irina to spite Tanya, leader of their coven and an audacious succubus. Telepathy made me arrogant; I thought her desire was rooted only in the lure of conquest. But she wanted a mate, someone to rule their little clan as an equal by her side, and my callous disregard for her sister was deemed unforgiveable. Tanya demanded we leave her coven, unable to pardon Carlisle's association with someone who would abuse her sister in such a manner."

Isabella starts. "Abuse?"

"Not the way you're thinking." Though by a slim margin. "Referring to my post-coital indifference and lack of serious intention. Irina was a means to the selfish end of putting Tanya in her place."

"Why?"

"To punish my sire." The admission punctures my lungs, and I gasp for breath. Isabella tightens her hold, determined to keep me together, and rubs my back until my tremors have subsided. "I am sorry."

"None of that." Another kiss, this one to the back of my head. "More, please."

"I thought that would do it, that securing his eviction from the lone immortal family he had ever known would convince him to finally abandon me as I so desired. But he refused, and I was tired of trying to be good. So I stopped trying and showed him just how bad I am.

"I left a trail of bodies from Bangkok to Boise and back. I preyed on criminals to justify myself at first, but as Carlisle persisted in his fatherly folly, I surrendered my scruples and selected my victims at random. A portly clerk in a general store. A perky teenager wearing a varsity sweater. An Olympic hopeful with the perfect backstroke. All felled by the misfortune of stumbling across my path at precisely the wrong time, victims to a game they had no thought of playing.

"And each time, he found me, professing his faithful love. I was weary of his interference and shifted my focus from destruction to disappearing. If I could lose him..." I clear my throat of sudden emotion. "…give him the slip, as it were, then I would be free to live—or not—as I pleased. It took the better part of a year, but I finally believed I'd lost him for good.

"By now, I'd stumbled upon a forgotten Slavic town in southern Ukraine. The surrounding land was full of vampires whispering the name of Crazy Jane. She was an ancient vampire who defied anyone to cross into an area she had long ago claimed for herself. I cared nothing for Jane or her predilections and pushed my way into her so-called territory. I killed indiscriminately, leaving crimson proof on her pristine streets, begging for confrontation. And my wish was granted after I murdered the protector who also happened to be her lover.

"Jane soon dispatched the rest of her minions, and they cornered me in a clearing. I was shocked by Jane's almost elfin appearance, but the look in her eyes excited me for the first time since my immortality began. She wanted to kill me and would, and the thought of it made me weep with gratitude."

Isabella sniffles above me, and a telltale trickle seeps into my scalp.

"I'm sorry," she mumbles into my hair. "Please go on."

"Isabella…"

"No, I'm fine. I just...the thought of you wanting to die so badly…it hurts to hear."

"It hurt to live."

"Oh, honey…." She snuggles closer, holding on tight. "I'm here."

I snort. "That's what he said."

"I'm sorry?"

"Carlisle." His name comes out on a snarl. "I guess news of my exploits reached his eager ears, and when he came storming into the field, he was shouting that in his mind. 'I'm here, Edward! I'm here!' He ignored the clamor of the guards and threw himself at Jane's feet, begging for my life. He took responsibility for my actions and swore to escort me far away if only she would have mercy. Jane abhorred the very concept of mercy—the formidable size and strength of her guard bore this out—so I knew his pleading would fall on deaf ears. Knew it so surely I didn't bother scanning Jane's thoughts for confirmation.

"So when she raised a hand and her guards receded, I was stunned. Carlisle equally so, and he looked up from his knelt position in front of her. Jane smiled and nodded at him. 'The boy is released,' she said, and Carlisle lit up with joy. He grabbed her hands and kissed them with excessive thanks. She nodded at him once more, and he came to his feet, turning to me with that infernal love in his eyes.

"I roared in fury, cursed and implored him to leave me alone, but still he walked toward me, his steps steady and sure. I was so angry and focused on his illogically tender thoughts that I processed Jane's next words a moment too late.

"'But one of you must die,' she said. And before I could react, she blurred to my sire and chopped off his head with her bare han…."

I fall to the floor as the words slip from my poisoned lips. Isabella is there beside me, above me, around me, her slight grip gaining no purchase against my solid frame as she dissolves into tears I can no longer cry. Apologies pepper my ears like the kisses she places against my skin, but they cannot stop the swell of memories inundating my senses:

The sardonic smile on Jane's red lips as Carlisle's beautiful head falls off his neck, rolling to the lush ground in front of her.

The strength of the guards holding me back while their comrades grab each of my sire's limbs and wrench them from his body.

The sweet, acrid stench of burning vampire flesh when Jane tosses a golden lighter onto the pile of paternal parts, the bright flames dancing with frenzied glee.

The crackle and pop of my sire turning to ash, the blackened dust rising to the skies only to fall in a final act of submission.

And the bitter tang of guilt that coated my tongue and grabbed permanent hold of it, tainting everything I would ever taste.

I cannot say these things aloud—Isabella's sanity must be hanging by the thinnest of threads by now—but there is no need. They surround and drown me, rendering everything in their periphery utterly meaningless.

Yet at the thought of Isabella, I realize she is yet holding on, her trembling voice forcing its way through the void.

"Edward…" She strokes my face with icy fingers. "Oh, my darling…"

Her ceaseless weeping prevents truly intelligible speech, but it matters not. The sheer quantity of tears magnified by the rapid pounding of her heart speaks louder than any words I could ever hear.

Were I not already speechless, the depth of her empathy would surely render me silent. She truly has Carlisle's spirit.

I know not how long we remain this way—the human girl mourning the loss of a man she never met while wrapped around the monster who killed him—but by the time I attempt speech once more, her sobs have subsided.

"Isabella." I lay a hand upon the one she presses against my cheeks. "I would…"

"Oh, Edward…"

"Are you all right?"

"Am I?" She pulls back. "What do you mean?"

"That could not have been easy to hear." I pat the tender hand on the floor beside me. "So please forgive me."

"Forgive you?"

"You have survived enough pain to last a lifetime. It is selfish of me to burden you with mine, particularly when you are innocent of the charges against you. I am not so fortunate."

"But I asked you to tell me. Don't you remember?"

"Though I would never dare speak for Carlisle." I swallow past the bile. "I believe I can say with certainty that he would be deeply moved by your grief. I too am quite overcome."

"Who wouldn't be grieved hearing such a story?" She squeezes my hand before resting hers on my back again. "I only wish you had told me sooner."

"I am sure you do. Then you would have known the truth of who I am."

"Yes. And I would have responded to you differently."

Her tone drops, and a stone sinks into my belly.

"What a waste," she sighs. "What a terrible, foolish waste. When I think of all the time you've spent punishing yourself for nothing, I could just…"

"What?"

"What what?"

"Did you…did you say 'punishing yourself for nothing'?"

"Yes." She scoots closer with a tsk. "My heart breaks to realize how much guilt you've needlessly carried all these years when…."

"Needlessly?" I spring to my feet, blurring away from her. "Woman, what are you talking about?"

My sudden movement scares her for sure, but she drops her hands into her lap, folding them demurely. "I am talking about you."

"Yes, but you're not making sense. You can't mean what you're saying."

"Why not? It's a perfectly logical respon…."

"No. There's got to be a…." My gaze lands on the window where she earlier found herself stuck. "You hit your head."

"What?"

"When you were lodged in the window, you must have hit your head. That explains it." I return to her at a human pace, dropping to my knees to inspect her forehead with delicate fingers. "Does this hurt?"

"No, but it's unnecessary. I didn't hit my head."

I continue my exploration of her scalp, finding nothing amiss. "Did you lose time? Black out? Was there any point at which you forgot where you…"

"Edward, stop." She encircles my wrist with a gentle hand, setting it beside me. "I'm not ill or having some sort of mental failure."

I sit back on my haunches to face her sincerity. "Then I don't understand."

"Understand what?"

"How you can say such things after hearing my story, after hearing what I did."

"Well…I admit it was a bit shocking to learn about all those innocent people you murdered." She glances quickly at the walls around us. "But I've long since known about the blood on your hands, so for that at least I was a bit prepared."

"I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about…" My voice shakes, and I gather myself again. "What I did."

"What you did?"

"To my sire!"

She blinks at me. "What did you do?"

"Are you…" I lace my fingers together to keep from shaking some sense into her. "Did you not hear a word I said?"

"I heard everything," she replies calmly.

"About Jane?"

"Yes."

"And what happened in that clearing?"

"Yes."

"And you understood it? All of it?"

"Yes. I understood it all."

"Then how can you sit there looking at me like that and say that I've been…that I've wasted my time feeling guilty about what I did?"

"Because you didn't do anything."

"I know I didn't do anything to stop it! That's what I'm trying to…."

"No, Edward. You didn't _do_ anything."

"What?"

"You didn't do anything to cause what happened to Carlisle." She rises on her knees and meets my startled gaze. "His death wasn't your fault."

And for the second time since Isabella walked through that door, the world as I know it ceases to exist.

* * *

 **Again, I'm sorry for the delay, but we are heading into the homestretch. Still a good number of chapters to go, but we've turned the corner so to speak. So hang on tight—it's only going to get bumpier.**

 **What do we think?**


	18. Chapter 18

**Disclaimer: SM owns Twilight.**

 **Y'all. I am sooo sorry for the delay. My crazy schedule ends next week, so I should be back to posting regularly again. I'm also preparing my first original novel for self-publication this fall, so that's another BIG YAY and even bigger time commitment. But I am also committed to my RedEyedEd and will finish this story. Promise you that.**

 **Last time, Edward told Isabella the truth about his sire's death, and her reaction stunned him. Things didn't quite develop the way I expected, but I hope you enjoy it just the same.**

 **Though maybe "enjoy" isn't the right word...**

* * *

 **The Last Word – 18**

I turn immediately away, startling her once more with the speed of my movements. Hands clenched, jaw tense, I apply the human practice of breathing slowly through my nose in an attempt to calm down.

It does not work.

"Edward? What's the..."

"Please give me a moment." The words are barely intelligible, and she gasps in fright behind me.

"What's wrong?"

"Isabella." My voice trembles with the effort not to lash out. "Please."

"Okay," she mumbles.

A grateful reply dies on my lips, and I close my eyes to savor the quiet, knowing it will not last long. Behind my lids, I replay the critical scene—in full sound and color—and again the pain lances through my heart with such force I must lean against the wall to remain upright.

"Are you all..."

"Please!" I snap. "I can't...I cannot bear your voice right now."

"And what is that supposed to mean?"

I feel my canines descend as her ire rises, and I shake my head. "It means...I need you to be quiet."

Some latent survival instinct must kick in, for she returns to a sitting position with a heavy sigh. Her thoughts throb with confusion, and I have the smallest inkling to explain myself.

But when my mind returns where I wish I would not, the hackles rise on the back of my neck, and I smother the urge.

For her safety and my sanity, I must smother the urge.

I don't know how long we sit in combative silence, but the rumbling of Isabella's stomach eventually breaks me out of my brooding. I hope my eyes have returned to their relatively safer ruddy shade as I turn to face her.

She now sits with her back to me, facing the wall closest to the door. The faint humming from before has returned, this time with a decidedly discontented flavor. I don't recognize this particular tune, but its meandering melody isn't as unpleasant as I would expect.

I do not say this, however.

"You need to eat."

"I'm fine," she says, returning immediately to her song.

"It is unhealthy for you to go so long without eating."

"I'm going to die soon anyway, so what difference does it make?"

She isn't cruel, not by nature, but the words were intended to injure me. To injure me just as, I now realize, my recent refusal to engage have injured her.

"Isabella, what may I get you to eat?"

"Oh, I'm sorry." She turns to glance at me over one shoulder. "Am I allowed to speak now?"

"I am sorry for that." I attempt to come closer, but she turns away again. "I assure you my silence was for your protection."

"Protection from what?"

"From my temper."

"Your temper?" She faces me fully now. "You're telling me something I've said has upset you?"

"It is probably best for us not to speak of it." I feel the chunks of anger gathering in my throat. "And to stick with more civil subjects. Like what we are going to feed you."

"No."

It is my turn to sigh. "Isabella, I am not joking."

"And I am not a child. You can't order me around just because you're having a bad moment."

"This is more than a mere bad moment." I clasp my hands behind my back, lacing my trembling fingers together. "This is...this is bigger than anything you could imagine, and if it's all the same to you, I'd..."

"Well, it's not all the same to me." She comes to her feet. "You owe me the courtesy of..."

"I owe you?"

"Yes! You owe me the truth. Isn't that what this whole thing of ours is based on? The truth?"

A rebuttal swells in my breast, but I hold it back, straining to remember my greater purpose. If I lose it now...if I give in to my basest attitudes now...I will lose any hope of having her with me forever.

And though angry beyond articulation right now, I am not yet ready to squander the chance for that.

I bury my face in my hands, willing the throbbing in my brain to cease. There are too many feelings clamoring for dominance, and it takes a few moments to isolate the one least objectionable.

"Edward?"

"I heard you. I'm...I'm not used to talking about my feelings." Let alone _these_ feelings. "And I cannot afford to fail in my attempt."

"As long as you are honest, you cannot fail."

I snort and turn away, not trusting my voice.

"Okay..." She clicks her tongue in apparent thought. "If you don't know how to say what you need to say, why don't you let me do the talking?"

"Meaning?"

"Something I've said has obviously hit a nerve. You could ask me about it."

A low growl forms in my chest. "How would that be helpful?"

"Because in asking your questions, you will also reveal your issues with me."

"Why would you want that?"

"Because I am not afraid of your questions. Or your issues with me."

This is pointless, and I know it. Nothing she says will erase the ache in my chest or the putrid taste in my mouth.

But this distraction is as good as any other, and if nothing else, the need to articulate will aptly redirect my focus to safer terrain.

Unless something worse happens.

"Edward?"

"Do you believe in the equal value of all living things?"

She blinks. "That's your question?"

"Is there something wrong with that question?"

"No, I just..." She worries that bottom lip again, releasing it when she catches me looking. "Sorry."

I remain silent, using her processing time to gather and reset myself once more. My efforts are feeble and futile, and I mutter ancient curses under my breath in frustration.

Meanwhile she has yet to reply, and I begin to wonder if my suspicion is correct.

"Isabella?"

"I'm sorry." She shakes her head. "I couldn't answer your question because I was distracted."

"By what, might I ask?"

"By the need to understand why you'd ask me such a thing." Her voice hardens as she looks up. "How you could ask me such a thing."

"I don't understand."

"What have I ever said or done to make you wonder if I value all living things?"

"You cannot answer my question with a question."

"I can do anything I damn well please."

"Hmmm. Perhaps your question-and-answer suggestion is not as helpful as you expected."

"And perhaps you're antagonizing me to avoid confronting your own feelings." She rises on her knees once more. "Perhaps that is the reason you stay here: to drown in the agony of others to avoid the turmoil in your soul."

A bark of a laugh flees my lips. "You just have all the answers today, don't you?"

"I have more than you may think." She stands to her full height, raising her chin. "And if you weren't such a coward, you would..."

"Coward?" I blur into her face, my blackened eyes widening. "Mind yourself, girl. It would take but a moment to prove you permanently wrong."

"Ah, so we're returned to the threats and belittling portion of our evening." She clasps her hands together. "Fabulous!"

"It's better than returning to the point where we no longer believed in the truth!"

"And you blame me for dragging us there?"

"Yes!" I roar, fuming across the space she has put between us. "I open my heart to you, expose the darkest, ugliest cavern of myself, and you dishonor that sanctity by lying to me."

"I have never lied to you."

I lean over her, studying her eyes. "Never?"

"Never."

"I see." I step back with a shrug. "So it's true, then. You do not believe in the equal value of all living things."

"Edward, I don't know what's gotten into you." Disapproval deepens her frown. "But I don't like it one bit."

"And I don't like being lied to." The admission pains me. "Not by you."

At my softened tone, her face falls. "Edward, I...I don't know what you're talking about."

"I told you about my rebellion, when I slaughtered my way through Europe and Asia..."

"Yes, I know."

"How I killed all those innocent people..."She stares at me blankly, and I shake my head. "You really don't know what you said, do you?"

"I honestly don't."

"You told me I took needless blame upon myself, that what happened wasn't my fault."

"I...Yes, I did say that."

"And did you mean it?"

She tries to look away, but my blazing gaze won't let her. "Yes, I did."

"So all those lives I snuffed out for fun, all that senseless death in the name of a spiteful tantrum..." I lean closer, and her heartrate doubles. "That wasn't my fault?"

She swallows hard. "You said you weren't asking my opinion about that."

"At the time, no." I cup her face, my gaze darting between her eyes and mouth. "But I am asking you now."

"I don't..." She swallows hard. "I don't think that would be helpful."

"Why not?"

"Because you've already admitted to being in a terrible mood, and I wouldn't want to..."

"Do I seem that way now?" I stroke her cheek with my thumb. "In a terrible mood, I mean?"

"N-n-n-no."

"Ah." I trail my thumb across her lips, pleased by her audible sigh. "Then you can tell me the truth."

"Edward, don't..."

"The truth, Isabella." I all but purr her name. "Tell me."

Her lips move without sound, and I move away to give her the space to speak. It is unfair to seduce the truth from her, but I must have it, no matter the cost. The distance between us does its work, and she blinks back to life.

"I...I understand that you were acting out. That you weren't in your right mind and riddled with confusion and anger and..."

"The truth, Isabella."

"I'm...I'm giving you the truth."

"Not the annotated truth or the sanitized truth. I want the plain truth, the first truth. The painful, ugly truth you don't have the guts to admit aloud. I want the..."

"You want the truth?" Her chest heaves as she storms toward me. "Fine! I cannot believe you murdered all those people to prove a point to Carlisle! I am positively sickened to know you could be so callous and unfeeling and selfish!"

"I knew it."

"I want to weep for their families, for the days and years they spent wondering if their father or best friend or daughter would ever come home, the unanswered questions that must have driven them half-mad with grief!"

"I knew it! I knew it!"

My eager response shocks her. "Then why make me say it?"

"Why did I have to make you say it?"

"Because those people are dead and have been for decades! Why would I berate you now for something that happened so long ago?"

"Because you owed me the truth!" My voice rattles the walls, and I will myself to calm down. "As my friend, Isabella, you owed me the truth. And in denying me that, particularly on a subject to profoundly personal, you..." I turned away, the former ache returning with a vengeance. "You wounded me."

"Edward..."

"And if you could mispresent your true feelings about that, then I...I must conclude you mislead me about your other feelings."

"About what?"

I shut my eyes, the words scraping across my tongue. "About Carlisle's death."

"No." She steps toward me. "Edward, I..."

"It's all right." All the fight has gone out of me, and I sink to the floor. "I should not have expected you to feel differently. Your son was murdered, and..."

"That is not the same thing!"

"Isn't it?"

"No!"

"But you just agreed I murdered those people out of sheer selfishness, giving no thought to their suffering, their lives, or the ones they would leave behind. I rejoiced when they died, reveled in the forbidden sweetness of their blood." I cannot bear to look at her. "Save a few meaningless details, is that not what happened to your sweet little boy?"

"It's...I'm..." Tears choke her voice, and she covers her face with her hands. "Oh, God..."

She dissolves into a puddle of frazzled tears, and I am powerless to comfort her. From my felled position on the other side of the room, I close my eyes and swallow her sadness, letting it flood my dead, guilty heart.

It is the least I can do.

"Why did you do this?" she whispers at great length.

"I had to."

"But why? Why did you force us into a place of confrontation?"

"Because it is the only place I know, Isabella. Everything else is vapor."

"Everything?"

"I have known little in this life that could convince me otherwise."

At her continued silence, I look up and find her watching me. She licks her parched lips, a worried frown knitting her brows.

"Even me, Edward?" A tear runs down her left cheek. "Even us?"

The rebuttal forms in my heart, and I part my lips to speak it. But some fissure in my soul steals the desired words, leaving only doubt in their place.

I look away from Isabella to cover my shameful face. Though perched at opposite ends of the room, we feel the sudden loss together.

And I cry first this time.

* * *

 **Edward's range of emotions surprised me in this chapter, and I was unable to corral or change them. I hope you still trust me to safely land this plane, and if so, I could use a few words of encouragement.**

 **See you sooner than later XO**


	19. Chapter 19

**Disclaimer: Ms. Meyer owns everything in the Twiverse. But don't steal my plot. It's rude!**

 **Still editing my novel, still sorry for the delay and scattered review replies. I shall improve on both going forward.**

 **But we are coming around the mountain, i.e., not quite near the end but more than halfway through. I would add a plea of sorts, asking you to trust me going forward, no matter what it looks like. But as most of you have read me before, I figure y'all know that by now.**

 **So let's just get back to it...**

* * *

 **The Last Word – 19**

Heaving, broken sobs wrack my body, loosening my hold on every hidden guilt and grief I have thus far possessed. Isabella's unraveling is of a more elegant nature, intermittent sniffles and sighs the only audible clue to the shattering of her soul.

A shattering committed by my ever-bloodstained hands.

If she does not think me truly immoral by now, then perhaps those psalms she sings have already done their best work and she has achieved sainthood on earth.

That would be the only logical explanation for it.

She wipes her sniffling nose with the back of her sleeve, and shame tightens its hold around my soul. In some recess of my mind, I try to rationalize that I did not have to force us into a place of confrontation as she so succinctly put it. I call myself a creative assortment of filthy names, the habit hounding me as I bear the weight of her sadness atop my own. It is what I deserve, I reason, an apt punishment for being the hellion I am.

But some small, seldom-used part of my heart counters that no, despite all evidence and history to the contrary, this time my insistence on conflict was necessary, prudent, and dare I say it, for the greater good.

What I cannot say, what she cannot know is how desperately I needed her to be wrong, how much I craved conformation that she in fact did not blame me for my mindless massacre. I hung on her every word, cataloged her every movement, all in the name of proving a point.

A point upon which the rest of my sanity wholly depended.

Had she doubled down and insisted she did not blame me for the senseless slaughter of those humans...had she really been in earnest about that...

...then I could have believed she did not also blame me for my maker's death. That her attempts to free me from that debilitating guilt were also real and perhaps, perhaps I could finally rid myself of this albatross...

I shake off the thought as it bears no good fruit now. For she lied about the humans—and why would I expect otherwise?—which calls the rest of her claims into immediate question, and here I am again at the intersection of damned and dejected.

And that is as it should be.

Time has long since seemed to matter, and the shifting shadows on the wall detail the dissipation of the day. The gradual loss of light adds a broody hue to our already dampened mood and is an apt reflection of the loss we have just incurred.

The loss of innocent ignorance.

"You're wrong."

Her soggy whimper belatedly reaches my ears, and I raise my head just above my folded arms. "What?"

"You're wrong."

"About what?"

"About me. About us." She pauses to swipe the moisture beneath her eyes. "About everything."

"Isabella..."

"No, Edward." Her voice gains strength as she comes to a sturdier sitting position. "You think I lied to you before, about the people you killed and about Carlisle..."

I meet her eyes. "You did."

"I told you the truth I thought you could handle, the truth I was comfortable with. Yes, there was more, but there always is. There is always more than one truth in operation at one time. But the direction of our lives is determined by which truth we choose to govern our lives." She tucks her hair behind her ears. "You murdered all those people, and that is deplorable. But you were angry and hurt and..."

"Please stop defending me."

"Oh, I'm not defending you. I'm defining you. Defining the monster you were then and finding him quite different than the man you are now."

A glimmer of hope flicks to life inside me, but I tamper it down with facts. "The epigraphs on the wall might suggest otherwise."

"These were men already condemned to die, guilty of heinous atrocities. If you hadn't killed them, the state would have."

The direction of this conversation makes me itch, and I paw aimlessly at my skin. "However you choose to package these so-called truths, the ultimate truth remains: my actions against those people are indefensible."

"Agreed."

"Which you did not say and therefore lied about."

She narrows her eyes, nodding after a moment. "Ah."

"What?"

"Nothing."

"That didn't seem like nothing."

"Oh, I'm sorry. Am I not allowed to keep some things to myself?"

"Why not?" I shake off my earlier despondency. "What's one more lie of omission?"

"Yes." A slow smile spreads across her face. "Exactly."

"I do not take your meaning."

"Of course you don't." She plucks a fallen hair from her pant leg. "But that's not surprising."

That uncomfortable feeling spreads, and I flee for safer ground. "You need to eat."

"Would that please you?"

"Yes. No." I scrub my face with frustrated hands. "Does it matter?"

"According to you a few moments ago, nothing does." She leans back on her arms as her stomach protests her abstinence with greater volume. "So why would my being hungry be any different?"

"I was angry when I said that."

"So you didn't mean it?"

"Which part?"

She shrugs. "If you lied about one part, the rest is all lies anyway."

"That is not true! I was…oh." I met her gaze, unsurprised to find her smirking. "Well played."

"Thank you." All trace of humor evaporates. "But I am not playing, Edward. Not with you, not about this."

I come to my feet. "I'm going to find food. Do you have a preference?"

"Yes. I prefer we not waste our precious time together on sustaining a body that will soon return to its original form."

"Dammit, woman!" I whirl around with blazing eyes. "Why do you insist on throwing away a life I am trying to desperately to save?"

"I thought you wanted to show me in no uncertain terms that…"

"You want me to admit I didn't mean that? That I was just lashing out because I was angry at you for pricking at parts of my past best left dead? Fine! It was all a lie, okay? A poor excuse for a diversion that I used to once again project my issues on to you." I throw up my hands. "There! You happy now?"

She sighs. "Not in the least. But thank you for being honest."

I sink to the floor, wishing it would swallow me whole. "What do you want from me?"

"I never asked you for anything, Edward." She turns away, rubbing her arms. "James' lies dragged me here, and I came under protest. Waiting for results of appeals I never asked my lawyer to file, all in his vain hope that I might return to a life I no longer wanted. A life, I realized, I never really had.

"I'd heard about you, you know." She pauses but doesn't look my way. "Wild rumors about the resident executioner. Some beast of a man who relishes the kill and preserves the last words of his victims. Clever, I thought, if not more macabre than any human should be. At least that last part is explained.

"So I wanted to meet you, looked forward to it actually. The guards didn't understand my alacrity this morning, why I was ready and waiting upon their arrival. They assumed I was crazy and wanted to die, and perhaps they are right about that. But really, I wanted to meet you, to see behind the curtain and unearth the wizard's secrets."

I find myself rubbing my own arms for warmth. "So you did want something from me."

"I was curious, yes, and had a wealth of questions." She steps around the jagged hole my fist made in the floor. "But I didn't expect you to be like this."

"Like what?"

"You know." She gestures at me with an errant hand. "All chatty and challenging, philosophizing about what should have been a two-minute process. Yesterday I thought I'd be long gone by now, but here we are, picking at scabs and trading stories, and for what? We already know how this one ends."

My brows knit in anger. "You are so careless with your life."

"My life long ago ceased to belong to me." She slowly brings her gaze to my face. "And I have accepted that. Have you?"

The question strikes me in the core of my callous heart, and I turn away to rub the tender spot. Just the thought of her dying fills me with a sickening mix of rage and sadness strong enough to rend me in two.

I have an answer to her question—though I am all but sure it was rhetorical—but the moment has not yet come. Should I propose forever while we are in strife, her rejection will be swift and final.

And that I could not take.

"I almost feel I should apologize." My words are a whisper, but I believe she hears them. "For being so cross, for antagonizing you when you most need comfort. This must be a difficult time for you and..."

"Difficult?" She chuckles, the purity of the sound confounding me. "The only difficulty here is you, Edward. And I don't say that to insult you," she hastens to add. "Merely stating a fact."

"I don't understand you."

"I never asked you to save me," she says again. "Someone already beat you to it."

In a flash, I grasp the full meaning of her words, and their insanity is strong enough to make me lose any trace of the decorum I pretend to possess. And as the visceral reaction hits my brain, I do the unthinkable.

I laugh.

Loud, hard, and deep.

I sense her offense somewhere behind me, can almost picture her pursing her lips with an indignant huff, but I cannot contain my merriment.

Or bother to be ashamed of it.

"Did he now?" I wipe my mirthful eyes out of human habit as I face her. "Save you, I mean?"

She raises her chin with less attitude than I expect. "Yes."

I take my time surveying our surroundings before looking at her again. "He saved you?"

"Yes."

"Uh-huh." I fold my hands in front of my mouth to quiet myself before I lead us along the very path I so feared a few moments ago. To her credit, Isabella waits me out, breathing softly but deeply through her nose as I speak again. "You understand my confusion, I assume."

"I have a vague idea of its roots, yes."

"I mean, if this is his idea of saving." I look around and place my hands on my hips. "Then thanks for the offer, but I'd rather do this without him."

She nods once. "I see why you'd feel that way."

"But you don't?"

"No."

I feel the telltale trickle in the back of my neck, warning me away from this subject. But I ignore it, knowing we are too close to the precipice to turn back now. With everything else already on the line, it is high time we risked the fall.

And I am willing to jump first.

I put my hands behind my back, lacing them together as I pace the room. "Not at all?"

"No."

"Not even a little bit?"

"No."

"Not even for your shitty childhood?"

She shakes her head. "I see where this is going."

"Do you? Because if you see where this is going, then I fail to understand how you escape its inevitable, logical destination."

"Because faith isn't logical."

"Faith?" Another laugh escapes me. "This isn't a matter of faith! It's a matter of fact. Cold, hard facts you shared about your life which do nothing but call into immediate question how any rational person could possibly believe in this so-called salvation which has you so eager to die." I hold up my hands to pause her attempts to respond. "I could almost accept it being primarily in a belief in some heavenly hereafter where this world's troubles fall away and you enter some eternal rest."

"It is!" She lowers her voice. "At least in part."

"But even that brings me back to my initial confusion! This same God who sees, knows, and controls it all handed you a life where the cards were stacked against you in increasingly sinister ways. So how the hell could you trust him with your eternity?"

"Because..." She speaks with a surprising lack of anger. "He saved me."

"From what?" I all but roar.

She holds my gaze, and her eyes well with tears. "Myself."

* * *

 **MANY thanks for your continued interest and support! See you in a bit. XO**


	20. Chapter 20

**Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer owns everything in the Twiverse. But this plot is mine, so no stealing!**

 **Y'all still out there? I hope so.**

 **Let's find out what Isabella means by "He saved me from myself"...**

* * *

 **The Last Word – 20**

Whatever my feelings about her beliefs, her tearful reply takes some of the venom from mine. "Yourself?"

"Yes."

I compose myself, fully aware we are on shaky ground now. "I don't understand."

"How could you?" She wipes her face with the back of her hand. "You've never attempted to see things from my perspective. Or anyone else's for that matter."

"Anyone else's?"

She refuses to meet my gaze. "I believe you know who I mean."

Ah, so the proverbial gloves are off.

I take a turn about the room, weighing my options. There is little reason to entertain this foolishness any further. Nothing she says will change my opinion, and at this point, she seems disinclined to bend to my way of thinking.

Yet if I do not persist...if I let this go, I must also release all hope of eternity with her, for surely she would never contemplate an earthly forever with a man who mocks her morals.

But how can I pretend to believe such nonsense? To give any credence to any number of the fallacies her faith proclaims? Is she worth that much? Is having her immortal body beside me worth that much?

A glance at her damp face warms my heart despite my mind's protests, and my objections fall completely silent.

"You think I lack perspective?" I ask, hoping she cannot see through me.

She looks up, seeming surprised to find me on the other side of the room. "I didn't say that."

"But that's what you meant."

"I tend to say what I mean, Edward." She turns away. "Which makes one of us."

"You said he saved you from yourself." I lean against the wall, crossing my feet at the ankles. "A more opaque statement has never been made."

And there's that defiant lift of the chin I have come to love. "I spoke plainly."

"Yet you didn't explain it. And now you accuse me of..."

"I did not accuse you..."

"...not having perspective. It seems the longer we are together, the less I understand."

She smiles. "That much, at least, is true."

Whatever sadness her earlier admission produced has dissipated, and her playful spirit has returned. If this emotional schizophrenia is a preview of the next thousand years, then I am in for a diverting millennium.

"Did you hear me?"

I blink out of my reverie and find her staring at me. "Sorry?"

"Did you hear what I said?"

"Evidently not." And her tone reveals nothing. "Would you mind repeating it?"

"I said that if you want me to be more specific, you have to promise me something."

"No."

"No, what?"

"I don't do promises."

"You have 'done' several in the past few hours alone."

"Have I?"

"You promised not to hurt those men when you went to get my water. You promised I didn't have to do anything I didn't want to do. And..." She slowly meets my gaze. "You promised you'd never let go."

The memory is in my mind before I can stop it: Isabella's quivering body huddled against my chest as she pours out the truth about Charlie; her unique scent filling my lungs as I breathe into her hair, whispering assurances I am unqualified to give. I would have done anything to ease her pain in that moment, given anything she asked of me.

Could it really be so different now?

"What's the promise?" I murmur.

I must have startled her because she doesn't reply right away. And when she does, I can barely hear her.

"The promise isn't to me. It isn't even about me."

I mash my lips together to quell my initial response. "Okay."

"It's about you."

"Okay."

"And about..." She nibbles her bottom lip, releasing it at the very last moment. "About what I hope you'll remember when I'm gone."

My head snaps up. "When you're gone?"

She doesn't even blink. "Promise me."

I shake my head. "No."

"Edward..."

"Isabella, I...you can't ask me to promise anything about what I will do when you're gone."

She swallows hard. "We knew this was coming."

"I know."

"It's why you're here."

"I know."

"And there is no way we could..."

"I know, dammit!" I turn away, fisting my hands in my hair, trying and failing to keep my rising emotions in check. Any discussion of her death is bad enough, but the current iteration reminds me of something I have altogether forgotten.

She expects to die at my hands.

For everything we have shared, every impossible memory we have made, Isabella still believes I will take her life. And I have no way to disabuse her of that belief without tipping my hand.

And I don't think I can do that.

"I'm sorry, Edward." Her gentle voice yanks me out of my musings. "I don't mean to upset you by..."

"You have nothing to be sorry for." I try to coax the anger from my voice. "You were...you were being honest as always, and I was simply unprepared for a bald reminder of where things stand. Forgive me."

"Edward..."

"And..." I shove aside the broader context and focus simply on this moment. "I promise."

She gasps softly. "You do?"

"I promise to..." It is my turn to swallow hard. "To remember your words when we are...when I am...to remember them at a proper time at a later date."

I see the hesitation in her eyes—she wants more than I am offering. But I can do no better, _be_ no better right now. And if this much of me is not enough, then we truly are sunk.

"Okay then." Her smile is muted but steady. "Then I will explain what I meant."

I yield the proverbial floor with a sweep of my hand. "Very well."

I expect Isabella to speak right away, so eager has she been to tell this tale. But she walks to the window in silence, gazing at the evening sky. This confession, it seems, carries more import than even the story of her son's death. And in deference to its significance, I shall let her begin when ready.

No matter how long that takes.

"I hated James," she whispers as a strange breeze blows through the room. "And even those three words can't contain the venom I harbored in my heart. I despised him bodily, feeling that anger simmering in my veins, coating everything I tasted, touched, and saw. My loathing was intoxicating in its intensity, and I spent the entire trial high on its effects.

"Once the verdict came back..." Her voice breaks on the last word, but she pushes past it. "Those feelings hardened, sharpened in me. They were weaponized and focused, and I put every ounce of my energy into them. With every breath, I cursed James. With every thought, I imagined creatively painful ways for him to die at the hands of someone more sinister than he. And I prayed—God, how I prayed!—for the day when I would finally see the fruit of my labor, get to see the proof of his destruction face-to-face.

"So when the guards told me I had a visitor, I was almost giddy. I knew it was James, as my lawyer had long since stopped coming, and I couldn't wait to lay my eyes on him. I determined not to mock his suffering right away but to glean as many details of his demise as I possibly could before enjoying it. And before I stepped into the visiting room, I thanked God for answering my prayer.

"But when I saw him..." She shakes her head, exhaling harshly. "I didn't have to force myself to retain my laughter or try not to react to his decline. Instead, I found myself fighting the urge to vomit. Because James didn't look like he was suffering at all. In fact, he was quite the opposite—healthy, whole, and so at peace it made my heart sick."

She falls silent, and though I want to tear at my skin in impatience, I wait her out. I know not where her tale leads and fear haste could be my enemy.

"You asked me why he came to see me," she says with recovered strength. "And I said I didn't know because he only stared without speaking. I don't know for sure, but I believe he didn't say anything because of what I did."

"What did you do?"

Her expression clears of emotion, and she stares behind me, lost in thought. "Nothing."

"Nothing?"

"I didn't move, didn't speak, didn't acknowledge his presence beyond the initial shock the sight of him brought me. I just disappeared." She licks her lips to little effect. "I don't recall James speaking, but something must have happened to get the guards' attention, for the next thing I knew, I was being carried out of the room. I heard the words 'infirmary' and 'medicate' tossed around as they jostled me, but I didn't care. I couldn't care what they did to me. Not after seeing James like that.

"They left me in my cell where I stayed for two weeks, unmoving. They brought food I didn't eat, issued threats I didn't acknowledge. I just sat there in furious futility, raging and screaming at God for fucking me over once again."

A smile graces my face at the admission, and I have sense enough to turn my head before she sees it. I should not rejoice at her pain, but I am relieved to know she is, in fact, human after all and occasionally capable of rational response.

"It was a heady experience, being so audaciously angry with God," she continues. "Despite the bars and the guards around us, it was like we were alone in the world—just he and I—and in that alternate, private universe, I could say whatever I wanted. There was no need to hold back, to pretend to take it well or be good for the sake of earning whatever pitiful prize the resident preacher would promise. In that space, I let him have it: my pain and guilt, my resentment and rage, I let him have it all, 'fired with both barrels' as one of the guards here is fond of saying. I cursed him and his entire creation, damning him to the pit of the hell he supposedly created. I cursed him, damned him, and felt damn good doing it."

Her voice is so full of anger, I wince against it. I didn't know she had such depth of misery inside her, and I begin to see her in a different light.

A fuller, more beautiful light.

And it must be that light which overtakes her face when she looks up, for she is positively aglow as she smiles. "Now do you see?"

I blink at her. "See what?"

"How he saved me?"

She must be joking, and I say as much.

"I am not joking," she says. "Surely you see that now."

"I don't see anything but..." I cut myself off, knowing my next words would be nothing but offensive. "But perhaps you could explain yourself a bit more clearly."

"I believe I have explained everything."

"All you have explained," I say with more patience than I have ever used before. "Is that you cursed God, the world, and everything in it. And not only does that not explain your path to salvation, it most certainly doesn't explain why you would even want it."

"Because he saved me."

I drag my hands down my face, muttering ancient expletives under my breath. "Isabella, I am trying my best to take this journey with you, to see what you have seen or...at the very least gain some measure of understanding. But in all you are saying, you are not making sense, love. I'm sorry to put it so bluntly, but that's the truth."

She smiles again, and I feel I have somehow said precisely the right—or the wrong—thing. "That's exactly it."

"What?"

"That's what saved me, Edward. The truth."

"What truth?"

"The truth that I hated James and wished him nothing but pain and misery, yet he came to see me looking better than ever. And that seeing him sent me into some psycho-emotional state of shock that no doctor could talk me out of. And from that state, I damned God and his entire creation and wished the whole world would burn down and take me with it."

Her gaze softens, and I hold my breath as she speaks again. "And it was from that place, that place where I had nothing left and nothing to lose, that I found the truth that saved me."

"I thought he saved you."

"He did. And do you know why?"

"Saints alive, would you just spit it out?"

"Because of love, Edward." Another smile overtakes her face. "Simple, inexplicable love."

"Well, if love is that truth," I spit into the hole my fist earlier made in the floor. "I'd rather live a lie."

"I know." Her smile fades as she crosses the room. "And that I cannot allow."

"Better than you have felt the same," I reply not unkindly. "And he was unable to make me see the light."

"I know that too." She cups my face with gentle hands. "And like him, I am willing to die trying."

* * *

 **I'm sorry for the mini-cliffie, but this is the most logical place to leave this chapter.**

 **I know FFN has been having some technical difficulties and that me preparing to publish my first novel in two months has taken up a lot of my time, but I SO appreciate each and every one of you for continuing to love on me and these two precious people. We are nearing the end of this story—I'd estimate about five more chapters to go—so hang on.**

 **See you in a few weeks! XO**


	21. Chapter 21

**Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer owns everything in the Twiverse. But this plot is mine.**

 **So I had a different Author's Note here earlier...which some of you may have read already...in which I acknowledged the confusion many of you felt in the last chapter but said that I did in fact have a plan and I hoped y'all would stick around and stick with me to see it through.**

 **But I didn't like the way the note looked. It read differently and read harshly (perhaps it was the bold A/N font), and that is NOT what I wanted. So I deleted it and wrote this instead.**

 **Ultimately, though I do have a plan and plan to see it through, I don't like knowing that I've confused, aggravated, or alienated anyone with anything I've written. That's the LAST thing I want to do, and I do hope this chapter makes it up to you :)**

 **Let's continue.**

* * *

 **The Last Word – 21**

I take a definitive step back, leaving Isabella's empty hands in the air. A frown furrows her brow as her arms fall limply at her side. "What did I say?" she asks.

"It's what you didn't say that vexes me." I am proud of myself for remaining so calm. "So you'll forgive me if I'm not in the humor to be coddled."

"I'm not trying to coddle you."

"You're not trying to answer me either." Her lips part to refute me, and I hold up a hand to stop her. "Lucky for you, I choose to believe the oversight is unintentional."

"How could it be otherwise?"

She sounds hurt, so I measure my reply. "Evasive evangelism, to give it a name, is often deployed as the truth, especially when one has the best of intentions."

"What?"

"Instead of trusting the truth to do its work, it's as if you're trying to craft your story to maximize its emotional effectiveness. And I don't fault you for it, really." Or am trying not to. "But if the truth is as powerful as you claim, then such tactics are unnecessary."

She doesn't answer right way, my words seemingly rolling around her mind as she reflects on our last few moments of conversation. And when the proverbial light bulb goes off, her face falls.

"Oh, Edward." She wraps her arms around herself, blowing out a long slow breath. "I'm sorry. I hear what you're saying, and...you're right."

I am stunned she admits it. "I am?"

She nods, keeping her gaze averted. "I...I don't remember the last time anything mattered to me this much, and I guess I'm...I'm trying so hard to make sure you understand that I'm not really saying anything."

And if this is her way of trying to make me understand, then our conversational future is dire indeed. I have sense enough not to say this, however, and opt instead to steer her back to our supposed destination.

Hoping, this time, for minimal detours.

"I see a lot of myself in you," she says before I can speak. "My former self, I mean. I was so hard, so angry with the world and myself. I thought God was a joke, the whole opium of the masses thing, and blamed Him for everything wrong in my life."

"And you cursed him to his face." I try not to sound bored. "Yes, I remember."

She looks up then, her expression stuck between hesitant and hurt. "I fed on those feelings, made them my bread and butter to the exclusion of everything else. And the day I cursed God? It was much longer than a day—it was 31 days of internal raging and screaming I thought would never end. As many times as I wanted to die before then, I never knew the depths that sort of longing could reach. I didn't want to go to heaven, hell, nirvana, the other side, or anywhere else we believe may await us. I just wanted to not exist anymore, to cease to be as if I had never been at all.

"Because my life hadn't mattered. For as long as I'd lived and as much as I had endured, it hadn't mattered to anyone. Not to my birth parents or the state-approved substitutes, not to Vicki or James or his cronies who helped him conspire to..."

She swallows hard, and I wonder again if whatever she's trying to tell me is worth the pain she is obviously in.

"Anyway...I lay in that place, lost in myself and the world around me, and the last thing I remember saying was, 'I just wanted someone to love me.' I don't even know if I said it aloud, but that was the last conscious thought I had before it happened."

Though grateful to be on the cusp of answers, I stop just short of rolling my eyes. "Before what happened?"

"I heard a voice. Whether inside me or beside me, I couldn't tell you. But I heard this voice, this small, sure voice saying, 'But Isabella, I love you.' And I expected to rail against it, to deny that voice with every bit of proof I'd lived to the contrary, but I...I didn't. I couldn't. As crazy and impossible as it might seem, as insane as I know it sounds, when I heard that voice say He loved me, I knew it was the truth."

She raises her gaze to mine, and the clarity there shocks me enough to speak. "That was the truth?"

A slow nod. "That was the truth."

"After everything you endured, everything He put you through, you believed He loved you."

"Yes." She comes toward me. "Because, as you just said, I endured. For everything that happened to me, every time I should have died and wished I had, I was still here. My careless parents' apathy didn't kill me. That fall down the stairs didn't kill me. The drugs James gave me—which I learned in court should have killed me—didn't kill me. I was still here, after all of that? Why? Why would I still be here?"

"Because life hadn't finished screwing you yet."

"I know. I thought the same thing, believed it with all my being. At least, I did until I heard that voice. And I asked the voice, 'You love me?' and He said, 'Yes, Isabella. I love you.' He said over and over and over again—never frustrated, never angry, and never asking for anything in return."

A snort escapes me. "I thought he wanted your life."

"Yes." The corner of her mouth lifts. "But not to repay him for loving me. No, it's that He wants to give in a new life in exchange, a life worth living."

"Worth living? Isabella...do I need to point out the obvious?"

"Obvious?" She follows my gaze as it surveys the walls around us. "Oh, that."

"Yes, that! Apparently he loved you so much he left you in prison."

"His love doesn't change the circumstances we're in, Edward. It changes us _in_ the circumstances. It's not as if His love could change the verdict."

I shake my head, scuffing the floor with the front of my shoe. "This is just..."

"Ridiculous? Yeah, it is." She rubs her arms. "It is ridiculous that He could let me curse him to the fiery pits of hell and not hold it against me. Ridiculous that someone could love me enough to take my pain and give me peace. Ridiculous that someone could replace my anger and angst about James and replace it with a love that defies logic and eclipses earthly reason."

"At least that part is true."

"Edward, I know this sounds crazy, and well, maybe I am." She meets my eyes suddenly. "But do you...do you ever wonder what it would be like to live without that weight?"

I look at her. "What weight?"

"Your anger at the world, your guilt about the people you murdered, your shame about your current occupation." She comes toward me. "Your loneliness and sense of futility, your sadness about those you have loved and lost..."

"No." The word stops her in her tracks. "It is useless to wonder about things you cannot change."

"But you can change it, Edward! And that...that weight is what He saved me from." That beatific light shines in her eyes again. "Receiving His love lifted all that weight from my heart and let me breathe again, feel something other than wretched and wrecked again. Because hating James didn't change James; it nearly killed me! He is out in the world right now, living his life as if I were never in it. I nursed that rage day after miserable day, and what happened? James lived unaffected, and I was the one drowning. Don't you see? His love saved me from destroying myself by hating James. It's a beautiful exchange."

"You get death in prison and he gets to live? Wow. That is beautiful."

"I know that sounds unfair."

"That's the least of how it sounds."

"But this...this is what I have come to understand. His love for me, this love I don't deserve and cannot possibly contain, is available to everyone. Even James, even Vicki, even you."

"But I don't want it."

"And that's your choice." She sounds hurt but covers it admirable well. "But after realizing what a precious gift this love is and what a waste it was to spend the rest of my life hating James, I'm...I've learned to trust Him with James and whatever happens to him."

I turn away, unable to bear the sight of her any longer. I am glad she has received whatever emotional buoyance this so-called love provides. But her easy acceptance of James' escape...

It is blasphemous to my ears.

"How can you..." I drag a hand down my face, trying to get myself together. "How can you base so much of your future on someone you can't even see?"

"Because I know what I feel."

"You felt safe with James. And look how that turned out."

"If I'm honest, I never felt safe with James. How could I? He was a con-artist, a liar, and the most selfish man I'd ever met. But he was better than nothing. And without him in my life, there really would have been nothing. Until Charlie, that is.

"And see...I tried finding my salvation in another human being. When I survived that fall down the stairs and heard my baby's heartbeat, I thought, 'He will be my reason to live.' And he was. But then he died and took my reason with him."

"But James took him from you." I turn to face her. "If not for that, you would still be happy and in love with your son."

"Loving Charlie is one thing. But using him as my reason to live would have been unhealthy and unfair to him."

"What about living for yourself?"

"Look at me! This is the healthiest I have ever been, emotionally I mean. The girl I used to be...there was nothing there to live for. If James was an improvement, what sort of state do you think I was in?" She shakes her head. "Those options didn't work for me because I was too fallible to be reliable and everyone dies eventually."

I find sudden interest in the hole in the floor between us. "I won't."

"What was that?"

I look up, squaring my shoulders. "I'm immortal."

Isabella stares at me, her eager gaze softening. "Are you?"

"What are you..."My eyes widen as I realize where she's going. "Oh, I see. This is the part of our program where you remind me Carlisle was immortal but no longer walks among us."

She looks down. "I only point that out to refute the idea that living for an immortal is somehow preferable to living for a human being."

"Carlisle, like Charlie, was murdered." I storm to the other side of the room. "And I cannot believe you don't see why that matters."

Isabella doesn't reply as I expect, and when I finally turn around, I see her coming toward me. "Edward..."

"Yes?"

"Charlie was murdered, yes." She tucks her hair behind her ears. "But..."

"But what?"

"Carlisle was not."

"What do you mean, 'Carlisle was not'?" She swallows hard, worrying her top lip for variety's sake, and her silence is maddening. "Well?"

"Edward, how old did you say Carlisle was?"

I blink at the subject change. "What?"

"How old was he?"

I fist my hands together and place them on my hips. "He was born in the 18th Century. You do the math."

"Was he a rational man?"

"Yes."

"Sober in all his ways?"

"Yes."

"Well-traveled?"

"What the hell does that have to do with anything?"

"Was he well-traveled?"

"Yes!"

"Okay." Her eyes soften as her cadence slows. "Your rational, sober, well-traveled sire who has lived in the world for more than three centuries rushes into a field where a known sadist is preparing to murder his companion and..."

"And he offers to take me away if she will let me go." Venom pools in my mouth. "We have been over this before!"

"And she agrees..."

"Which shocked us both!" I stare at her with blackened eyes. "What is your point?"

"Was he really shocked?"

"What?!"

"With all that life experience and no reason to believe Crazy Jane would show mercy...do you honestly think Carlisle believed she would let both of you go?"

"Of course he did! I read his thoughts."

"And don't you think he knew you would?" She continues to approach me. "Don't you think Carlisle knew you would read his thoughts, so he had to convince you not to intervene? Convince you of his surprise at Jane's pardon to prevent you from interfering?"

"Interfering with what?!"

"With his plan to set you free. Don't you see?" She comes to a stop in front of me. "Carlisle wasn't murdered. He willingly, knowingly sacrificed his life to save yours. Because he loved you that much and wanted you to..."

"NO!" The word is a roar as I whirl around. "Carlisle is dead because of me! Because I was selfish and reckless and despised the holy ground he walked on. And all you've done here, despite your best efforts to the contrary, is prove that point beyond a shadow of a doubt. So thank you, Isabella Swan, for etching into the stone of my heart the inescapable truth of what a complete and utter waste I am!"

Black spots appear before my eyes, and I realize I am nearing the edge of my fading sanity. I blur to the window and stick my head out once more, engorging on air as if my life depends on it. In through my nose and out through my mouth, over and over again, until my chest ceases its heaving, my vision clears, and the thunder in my ears recedes to a dull hum.

Stepping away from the window, I run my hands down my face and take a long, deep breath. The soothing action clears away the final fog in my mind, and the scents of this darkening, depressing room fill my senses. But at the tail end of the inhale, I smell something else, something completely, disturbingly out of place.

I smell blood.

* * *

 **I hope to see you in about two weeks. XO**


	22. Chapter 22

**Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer owns everything in the Twiverse.**

 **No intro. Let's go.**

* * *

 **The Last Word – 22**

The smell of blood has an immediate physiological effect on a vampire.

The eyes darken, venom floods the mouth, and the canines drop, eager for that first sip.

But for first time in my near-century as a vampire, the smell of blood pulls me in polarized directions.

Anticipation quickens the activity in my veins, and I nearly vibrate with thirst. I didn't dare dream blood could smell so luscious and rich, and I am awash in primal lust as I imagine its sticky succulence coating my tongue.

But in the same agonizing moment, the smell of blood—of _this_ blood...in _this_ place...in _this_ moment—sends a debilitating chill to the very narrow of my bones, paralyzing me with fear.

I swallow hard, my body stymied in molecular ambivalence, and force myself into a decision. I must master this moment not let it master me. For the sake of everything I have done in the past few hours, I must remain the man I claim I am.

And to do that, I must turn around.

Trembling inside and out, I move slowly, not wanting to startle Isabella—and not terribly eager to see what awaits me. And as she comes into gradual view, I am aghast at what I see.

Isabella is crumpled on one side, her left leg bent awkwardly beneath her. Shallow, rapid breathing proves she is still here, but as I scan her body from foot to face, the source of the bleeding comes into view.

And I want to die.

The glass bowl...the precious container I hand-selected to carry Isabella's drinking water...lies shattered beneath her limp wrist.

Her bleeding, limp wrist.

"Isabella?" The name is an incantation as I gingerly approach her, praying for proof of consciousness. "Isabella?"

Her brows furrow, and she licks her parched lips, still not opening her eyes. "Edward?"

The relief is so powerful that tears spring to my eyes. "I'm here, love."

"Edward..." She tries to lean up on her forearm and cries out in pain before making much progress.

"Don't move," I manage to whisper despite the panic lancing my heart. This, I realize with a grimace, is the product of my predatory instincts roaring to life. In the face of a wounded potential victim, my allure doubles in potency—softening my voice, lightening my eyes, and intensifying my scent. Isabella will be powerless to resist my accidental advances, and the thought of the ordinary endgame makes me physically ill.

I yank back those feelings and pick my way toward her. The shards of broken glass feel like feathers against my hard skin, but mishandling those fragments would only worsen Isabella's condition.

But as blood drips slowly but steadily from her jagged wrist, I realize we have passed the point where things could worsen.

"How did this happen?" I ask, taking her wrist between my fingers.

Isabella's eyes open, but she does not meet my gaze. Instead she looks behind me, focusing on a random spot on the floor. "I was backing away, trying to give you some space, and I guess I fell."

"You fell?" My tone makes her look up, and she nods slowly, reminding me very much of a child. "How did you fall?"

She blinks at me owlishly, the words forming in her mind before she speaks them. And though my sudden ability to hear her thoughts is alarming, the truth they reveal appalls me.

"I wasn't paying attention..." she stammers. "And I...well, I, um..."

"You tripped over the hole I punched in the floor," I finish for her. "Tripped, fell backwards, and crashed into the crystal bowl of water I brought you."

Her reaction to my account is somewhat delayed, yet she actually tries to smile. "Something like that."

Her bravery breaks what remains of my heart, and I avert my gaze, unworthy.

"Edward?"

"I need to go get help. You're badly injured and…"

"Edward?"

Keeping my gaze just above her folded form, I angle my head toward the door. "I'll return shortly."

"You promised you wouldn't leave."

Though the words are a whisper, they roar in my ears like a sonic boom, breaking my will and halting me in my tracks. My head droops in defeat, and with a weighted sigh, I turn toward her once more. Though I've yet to summon the courage to look anywhere near her face, I feel her muted satisfaction as I approach.

"Help me up," she commands.

I nod once, counting stones in the wall to keep from staring at that garish gash on the inside of her wrist. I drop to a crouch beside her, surveying the damage.

"Edward?"

"Give me a moment, please."

"Is it the blood?"

My eyes pinch shut, and I swallow a string of curses. There is no proper answer.

"Are you tempted?" Alarm sharpens her tone. "Please be honest."

It is then I finally meet her gaze. Her wide, panicked eyes stare right through me, and it is a wonder I don't faint.

"No, Isabella." My voice is surprisingly steady. "I assure you I am in no way tempted."

She frowns. "Then what's wrong?"

My resolve weakens just so, and I square my jaw, refusing to blink. "I…I just don't want to hurt you."

Her eyes narrow. "I don't believe you."

"You think I want to hurt you?"

"I think something else is bothering you." She tilts her head further to the one side, finally noticing the damage to her wrist. Her gaze follows the trail of blood as it flows toward that accursed hole in the floor. "Oh."

The mere fact that she has only just noticed what looks to be an excruciatingly painful wound says more than anything I possibly could. So I wisely keep silent.

"Help me up, Edward." She doesn't look at me. "This is uncomfortable."

With reverent resignation, I scoop her up, tucking her head against my chest. Her left arm hangs limply to one side, and I let it dangle, unable to deal with the indications of its injury.

I choose the corner of the room furthest from the offending hole in the floor, easing myself to the ground. I grab the blanket and wrap her in it as best I can without jostling her. She has yet to raise her head from my chest, and I trail my fingers over her scalp, searching for additional wounds. Thankfully there is nothing there, and I sag against the wall in relief.

Brief relief.

Because the smell of Isabella's blood grows stronger with each passing moment, the red river running its inevitable course beside us on the floor. Isabella's breathing has slowed from its panic-stricken pace, but its refusal to stabilize proves the very truth I refuse to admit.

"Edward?"

"Yes, love?"

"Am I dying?"

I shut my eyes, biting back a harsh expletive. She would ask me that, just like that. She would want me to tell her, expect me to be honest. And I would fulfill her expectations...

...but not quite yet.

"Are you cold?" I reply instead.

"What?"

"Are you cold?" I tighten the blanket around her shoulders, leaving the wounded arm exposed to monitor her progress. "The temperature has dropped."

"Edward."

"Such is common in the tower as the day goes on." I continue adjusting the blanket as it refuses to cooperate. "Though I'm usually too preoccupied to notice how it..."

An icy palm comes to rest against my hand. "Edward."

I still my movements but refuse to look at her. There is no way I can answer that question until we have explored all of our options.

 _All_ of them.

"You promised not to lie to me."

"And I won't." I look at her then. "No matter how tempting the prospect."

"Then why haven't you answered me yet?"

"Because I don't have the answer just yet."

"Oh." Her face clears of its tension, and she slumps against my chest once more. "That's a relief."

"Are you not ready to die?"

"Oh, I'm ready. I just..." She sighs. "I just wouldn't want to leave things between us like this."

"Like what?"

"With you angry with me for suggesting Carlisle sacrificed his life to save yours."

I'll be honest with you: once the smell of Isabella's blood invaded my senses, I completely forgot everything peripheral to it. Carlisle, Jane, religion and all its rhetoric, I couldn't possibly care less about any of it right now.

But if reconciliation is what she wants, then that she shall have.

"I forgive you," I murmur, dragging my gaze to hers.

She studies me, and I fight not to shrink under her inspection. "Ah."

"What?"

"You forgive me, just like that?"

"Wasn't that the whole point of your discourse? The importance of forgiveness?"

"In part, yes. But not this way."

"What way?"

"Where you try to distract me from my looming death by pretending to forgive me for something that had you raging just a few minutes ago." She wiggles out of my embrace. "I don't want it that way."

"Isabella, stop." I give her room to sit upright but do not release her from my lap. "That's not...I mean..."

"Are you denying it?"

I met her eyes. "No."

"Then I am dying?" I part my lips to reply and hesitate, much to her annoyance. "Edward, please!"

"I can't...I mean, it's not up to me whether or not you're dying."

She weakly raises an eyebrow. "Now you believe in God?"

I shake my head.

"Then what are you getting at?"

I shake my head again, this time at myself. This is not the way this conversation is supposed to go. I am supposed to have the time to warm her to the idea of an earthly eternity, gauge her feelings about the prospect before suggesting it as an option.

I'm not supposed to present it as a last-minute Hail Mary with Isabella's blood dripping from her arm like liquid sand through the hourglass of her expiring life.

"Before I answer your question," I find myself saying. "Would you answer one of mine?"

She rolls her eyes, the exercise taking more energy than it should. "If I must."

"Are you really okay with knowing your son's murderer got away with it?"

Her eyes flash. "That's what you want to ask me?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because of everything you've said, that is the thing I least understand. The part that makes me wonder if you really are insane."

"And this is how you speak to a dying woman?"

"I've yet to accept that as fact."

"Well, that makes one of us," she mumbles.

I opt not to respond, hoping my question will stump her long enough for me to figure out how to do what I need to do. Though the barrier to her mind has been removed, I have learned nothing that could possibly help me. There's an alarming lack of mental activity, yet I see her brow furrowed in profound thought.

No matter. I don't have time to wonder about that now.

"In myself, I..."

The shock of her speaking causes me to flinch, jostling her in the process. "Sorry."

"It's okay."

"Please continue."

She tucks her hair behind an ear with her good hand, blowing out a quiet breath. "In myself, I have no capacity for forgiving James. There is no part of me with any natural desire to do that. In myself, I want him to suffer. I want him to bleed. I want him to know death is coming and have no way to stop it, no one to comfort him as it chases him down.

"But once I gave my life away, I no longer belonged to myself. I belonged to Him. And in Him, I can do what I need to do. In Him, I can forgive James and want to see him reconciled to _Him._ "

"How is that possible?"

"I've already explained that."

"But I still don't understand."

"And I'm sorry about that, Edward." She sinks into my lap, resting her head against my shoulder. "I don't know what else to tell you."

Though gratified to have her so close to me, her weakening pulse erases any real enjoyment I might otherwise have. Time is slipping away faster than I can catch it, but it is not enough.

No measure of time could ever be enough.

But Isabella seems resigned to a fate I refuse to acknowledge, and I must turn that tide.

No matter what it may cost me.

* * *

 **I'm sorry for the cliffie, but it couldn't be helped at this point in the story.**

 **Still love me? If so, I'll see you in another two weeks.**


	23. Chapter 23

**Disclaimer: SM owns everything in the Twiverse. I'm just playing around.**

 **Sorry for the delay. Let's get to it.**

* * *

 **The Last Word – 23**

Isabella settles against my shoulder with a contented sigh. I could easily revel in her nearness and forget my plans for her earthly permanence. But pursuing my agenda is more important than her comfort, and I take a deep breath.

"That's it?" I cry with more volume than necessary.

She blinks up at me. "What?"

"You're just giving up?"

"What are you talking about?"

I scoot away from her, forcing her to lean against the wall alone. "You think you're dying and off to the sweet by-and-by, so you're just going to wait for the chariot to come get you? Leaving James to live out the rest of his life unscathed?"

She actually rolls her eyes. "Well, what do you want me to do?"

"Fight! Scream! Rage! Do something other than just lie down and take it."

"You want me to...what? Get James and fight my death?"

"Or at least want to!"

"I've already told you why I've given up hating James."

"But you've also given up on life. And that I don't understand."

"I'm dying, Edward. What do you want me to do?"

The words are on the tip of my tongue, but I cannot bring myself to speak them in such an agitated state. My breath leaves me in a whoosh, and I sink against the wall beside her, awash in impotence.

"Edward?"

"Yes?"

"Do you remember the first thing I said to you? Well, after responding to your query about my sanity?"

My mind whirs back to that seemingly distant point in time. "You said you were tired."

"And?"

I bite my lip. "And that you were ready to die."

She waits for me to meet her gaze. "Those two facts have not changed."

"But earlier when you thought the guards were coming, you said you weren't ready! You said you didn't want to..."

"...leave things unfinished with you." She raises her good hand to stroke my cheek. "And I still don't."

"What does that mean?" I desperately search her eyes. "What do you want me to do?"

She stares at me so long I fear she hasn't understood my question. Then her eyes widen slightly, and she blinks herself back to life.

"I don't want to you to _do_ anything," she murmurs. "I just want you to be here with me."

She brushes her chafed thumb over my bottom lip, and the sensation stuns me into silence. It is a simple gesture of fascination, nothing rehearsed or seductive about it. But the wonder in her eyes as she fixates on my mouth humbles me...

...and arouses me as well.

"Can you do that, Edward?" Her voice drops in volume. "Can you just be here with me?"

"How..." I swallow hard as her thumb slides gently back and forth. "How can you ask me that when..."

"When what?"

"When you are..." I can barely get out the words. "Leaving me?"

"Yes, I must leave you..." She drops her hand, and I regret its loss. "...for now."

"For now?"

A slow smile spreads across her face. "Only for now."

"I don't know what that means."

"You are so beautiful," she whispers. "Like a work of art..."

Now I suspect she is indeed losing what's left of her mind. "Isabella..."

"Those soulful eyes and strong jaw..." Her lazy gaze ghosts over my face, dropping to my lips. "And, God, that mouth..."

I have to stay in control. "I should help you sit up."

"I'm sure those pretty blonde friends of Carlisle must have said so, but..." She lifts her good hand and sweeps the hair from my forehead. "They didn't really know."

"You really shouldn't..."

"But how could they have known?" As I gather her to me, her hand slides down the side of my face to cup my cheek again. "You never let them in."

She meets my gaze then, and my reply slips out. "I never let anyone in."

"Before now?"

"Before now."

I rest my hand atop hers, noting the minimal difference in our temperatures. But as alarming as that fact truly is, the look in her eyes is even more alarming. And as Isabella threads hers fingers through mine, a really stupid idea falls into my head.

She must notice the moment it happens, for a different sort of smile touches the corner of her lips. "Now you know."

"Knows what?"

"What I want you to do."

My gaze drops to her lips before returning to her eyes. "An hour ago, you told me that was unwise."

"An hour ago, I wasn't dying."

"Dammit, Isabe..." I cut myself off, not wanting to sully this impossible moment with my temper. "I can't kiss you then let you die."

"You're not 'letting' me die, Edward." She sets our entwined fingers atop her breast. "Whether I live, how I live and for whom I live is my choice. And I chose my fate before I ever laid eyes on you."

My fingers itch with their proximity to her tender flesh, and I clench her hand to divert the urge. "You'll pardon my preoccupation with the current place you've laid something on."

"Well..." She blushes, though there is little blood to spare for it. "I wanted to show you how you've touched my heart."

I snort in spite of myself. "A bit on the nose, don't you think?"

"Not the nose, no."

I shake my head, scandalized and highly amused. Apparently Isabella loses all sense of propriety as she approaches the end of the line.

Just like I have apparently lost my mind to allow myself to take such liberties with a woman, however tantalizing, whose future is yet undetermined.

I move our clasped hands to safer ground, resting them on her bent knee. "Isabella?"

"Yes, Edward?"

"I don't want you to misunderstand. I..." I groan under my breath. "I do want to kiss you."

Her brittle lashes manage to flutter. "Good."

"Desperately."

"Even better."

"But I...I think there's something we should discuss first."

"By all mea..." She yawns grandly, and her heartbeat drops into yet a slower gear. "...ns. Sorry."

"It's all right."

"And you'll kiss me afterwards?"

The hope in her voice is the anchor I need. "Yes."

"With tongue?"

My eyes darken. "Isabella!"

She chuckles. "I'll just leave that up to you."

"Very well." As her expression clears of amusement, I clear my throat. "Now, I said earlier that I wanted you to fight what's happening to you."

"Yes. Though I suspect had you thought it helpful, you would have just bound my wrist."

"I..." I cannot possibly confirm the suspicion in her assumption: if I do, she will shut down this conversation, and all will be lost. "I hadn't thought of that."

Her lips move in what might be a smirk. "I find that hard to believe."

"The shock of your blood robbed me of reason, I'm afraid. And for that, I apologize."

"No need. I'm sure if you cut yourself and chocolate mousse poured out, I'd be a little distracted too."

"What?"

"You love the taste of blood, right?"

"Yes, but I..."

"Well, I love the taste of chocolate mousse." She drags out the 's' sound then sighs. "I shouldn't have declined that last meal. Chocolate mousse would be great right now."

I detangle my hand from hers. "Can we get back to the subject at hand?"

"Chocolate mousse is the subject at hand." She blinks at me owlishly. "Could you go fetch me some?"

I don't like her choice of verb but neither do I wish to refuse her. "Is that what you really want?"

"I've already told you what I really want." She focuses on my lips again. "But chocolate mousse is the next sweetest thing."

I closed my eyes, pinching the bridge of my nose. The stench of her blood has long ago permeated the room, coating my senses with proof of her imminent departure. And somewhere in this room, fate is laughing its ass off. Because this woman—this infuriating, God-revering, wisp of a woman—has decided she is ready to die, but oh, before she goes, she wants to take what's left of my heart with her.

And the kicker is...I want her to have it.

"On second thought," she mumbles around another yawn. "I don't want you to leave. So no mousse for me."

"Okay." My eyes are still closed, and the labored cadence of her heartbeat emboldens me once more. "Isabella?"

"Hmm?"

"Remember I said I wanted you to fight your death?"

"Mmm-hmm."

"Well, if there...if there was a way you could fight it, would you?"

She doesn't reply, and I open my eyes to find hers closed.

"Isabella?" I jostle her gently. "Did you hear me?"

"Mmm-hmm. Fight."

"Isabella?" I try again, this time with greater force. "Open your eyes, love."

"Why?"

"Because I want to see them."

"You know what...they look like..."

"Please, love. I need you to look at me."

"But I'm so tired," she whines. "Wanna sleep."

"But you don't have to sleep. You could wake up now, and I would help you stay awake."

"What?" Her lids flutter. "Why would you wanna..."

"Look at me, love." She opens her eyes. "There's a good girl. If you stay awake, then you could stay with..."

"Charlie."

I frown, the mention of his name catching me off-guard. "I'm not talking about Charlie."

"No, Edward." She sits up and grins. "I see him."

"What?"

"I see Charlie!" She gazes at some fixed mark behind me. "He's...oh my god, he's walking! Oh, Edward, he's walking toward me!"

I clamp my lips shut, defeat coursing through me. For this moment has solidified a truth I had altogether forgotten: No matter how appealing an earthly eternity with me might be, Isabella would never squander the chance to spend forever with her baby boy.

And loving her means I could never ask her to.

"Look at what a big boy you are now!" Tears course down Isabella's cheeks as she continues staring behind me. "Oh, Edward, wait until you see him!"

I swallow my pain, looking over one shoulder to see nothing at all. "Yeah, he's amazing."

"I know you don't see him." She swats my arm with her bleeding one, her pain evidently forgotten. "Don't lie."

"Then what do you..."

"Oh my god." Her eyes widen as her gaze shifts just to the left. "It's you. I can't believe it's really you! I have...wow, I have so much I want to ask you!"

Her impassioned muttering continues, and I cover my mouth to keep from screaming. How could I have forgotten Charlie, the reason she's here and wants to be gone? How could I have forgotten that nothing we might have shared in the past however-many-hours-have-passed could ever compare to the love between this mother and her child?

Why did I allow myself to hope when it has only ever made my broken heart sick?

"Okay," she is saying, that beatific smile shining in her eyes when she looks at me. "It's time, Edward."

I clear my throat. "For what?"

Her hand slides up to grab the back of my neck. "What you promised me."

I look down. "I can't."

"Do you want to?"

I meet her gaze. "You know I do."

"Then do it."

"I can't."

She raises her brow. "Then I'll do it."

"Isabella..."

"Shut up, Edward."

With a strength she should no longer have, Isabella pulls my head down and presses her cold, dry lips to mine. The moment is as right as it is ridiculous, and I savor both sensations as she moans against my mouth.

She raises her head, her smile somehow brighter, and she licks her lips. "Thank you."

"You're welcome."

I bend to her once more, and she lets me indulge my foolishness until she pulls away to breathe. "Now ask me."

I am so lost in the afterglow I have no idea what she means. "What?"

"Ask me."

"Ask you what?"

She looks around the room. "I wanna be on the wall too."

The shock of her request immediately sobers me, and I nearly shove her away in disgust. "No."

"You have to."

"I do not and will not."

"Edward..." She raises her hand to my face, but it drops straightaway. "You must ask me now."

"No!"

"If you don't...then all of this will have been for nothing." She struggles to keep her eyes open. "Please don't let this be in vain."

"I can't say what you want me to say!"

"You don't...have to...to say anything..." Her voice is barely a whisper now. "Just ask me. Please."

There is no more time. Her heartbeat barely registers to even my keen hearing. And though I cannot let her go, could _never_ let her go, I can do this for her.

I will do this for her.

"Isabella Marie Swan," I murmur. "Any last words?"

"Yes." She drags her focus to me again, her gaze burning a hole in my soul. "See you later, Edward."

"What?"

She smiles, lingering on me for another second, and closes her eyes.

And does not open them again.

* * *

 **Soooo I should hide, right? Change my name and address and move to a remote part of the world?**

 **Well...I hope you guys are still with me and realize this story isn't quite over yet.**

 **Would love to hear your thoughts!**


	24. Chapter 24

**Disclaimer: Twilight and all its Twilightedness belong to Stephenie Meyer. I'm just having fun...well, not "fun" because this story is kind of dark. But you know what I mean.**

 **I apologize for the long delay. In full disclosure, I've been battling an acute wave of anxiety for the past few weeks, much of it rooted in the fact that I just self-published my first novel (get the deets in the closing A/N). I'm excited and nervous and very tired lately, so my brain has been mush, making it difficult to focus on any actual writing. But I'm too close to the end of this beloved story to lose momentum now, and I really hope you like what I've done with this chapter.**

 **Here's a little recap from Chapter 23 to jog your memory:**

 _"Isabella..."_

 _"Shut up, Edward."_

 _With a strength she should no longer have, Isabella pulls my head down and presses her cold, dry lips to mine. The moment is as right as it is ridiculous, and I savor both sensations as she moans against my mouth._

 _She raises her head, her smile somehow brighter, and she licks her lips. "Thank you."_

 _"You're welcome."_

 _I bend to her once more, and she lets me indulge my foolishness until she pulls away to breathe. "Now ask me."_

 _I am so lost in the afterglow I have no idea what she means. "What?"_

 _"Ask me."_

 _"Ask you what?"_

 _She looks around the room. "I wanna be on the wall too."_

 _The shock of her request immediately sobers me, and I nearly shove her away in disgust. "No."_

 _"You have to."_

 _"I do not and will not."_

 _"Edward..." She raises her hand to my face, but it drops straightaway. "You must ask me now."_

 _"No!"_

 _"If you don't...then all of this will have been for nothing." She struggles to keep her eyes open. "Please don't let this be in vain."_

 _"I can't say what you want me to say!"_

 _"You don't...have to...to say anything..." Her voice is barely a whisper now. "Just ask me. Please."_

 _There is no more time. Her heartbeat barely registers to even my keen hearing. And though I cannot let her go, could never let her go, I can do this for her._

 _I will do this for her._

 _"Isabella Marie Swan," I murmur. "Any last words?"_

 _"Yes." She drags her focus to me again, her gaze burning a hole in my soul. "See you later, Edward."_

 _"What?"_

 _She smiles, lingering on me for another second, and closes her eyes._

 _And does not open them again._

* * *

 **The Last Word – 24**

I sit.

I wait.

I wonder.

I stare.

A fractional flicker of her left lid rewards my attention, and the vice around my heart slackens.

Slightly.

I hold her.

Keep her.

Cradle her in the prison of my embrace, the soft smile about her lips suggesting she does not mind the incarceration.

Or could some other vision inspire her elation?

I fret.

I panic.

I burn.

The thought to whisper her name crosses my mind and dissipates just as quickly. Some self-preserving instinct warns me wholly against speaking.

In truth, I am afraid that should I open my mouth again, I would never stop screaming.

In pain.

In longing.

In lust and frustration.

So I remain mum, a soul on silent fire.

The stench of blood permeates my nose, and as its scent shifts, I curse myself anew.

I should have bound her wrist to buy some time.

I should have bitten her wrist to save her life.

I should have done anything but nothing.

And I should not have done this.

Respected her wishes and let her...

A faint tremor runs through her frail body, pausing my benediction and giving me time.

Time to wait.

Time to sit.

Time to wonder.

Time to stare.

The surrounding stillness is unnerving, frightening to even my supernatural senses. My telepathic talents make me partial to silence, but this... this is beyond silence. This is a cloying, cloaking thing that steals my peace and makes me beg for a distraction.

As if in answer, a latent activity rises to prominence in my mind, and I briefly rejoice at its busyness. But my consciousness of its calculations only deepens the quiet, and I curse myself anew.

For I have long since timed the rise and fall of her chest, and by my last count, the subtle movement is two seconds late.

Three.

Four.

Five.

Six.

Seven.

Ten.

Eleven.

Seventeen.

Eighteen.

Twenty-one.

Twenty-five.

Thirty.

Forty.

Fifty.

Sixty.

A horrid chill runs through my veins.

Her heart has been silent for sixty seconds.

Correction: her heart has been silent for sixty seconds longer than it should have been.

With only a cursory knowledge of biology, I know enough to know what I now know I know.

I close my eyes against the sudden nausea, fearing I might actually vomit for the first time in my immortal life. A fissure in mind ignores my denial, my shut eyes stinging with tears I cannot cry.

I will not cry.

I refuse to cry.

Instead I hold her closer, heedless of the empty seconds passing without our consent. The cruel clock of fate yet turns with its sadistic hands, sweeping away a life barely lived.

Her name bubbles to my lips, and I clamp them shut, tightening my grip around her slight frame. She does not resist and cannot react because...

I shake my head, my motions jostling us enough to crack the ground beneath me. My eyes open in time to watch the splitting line speed across the room and dive headfirst into the blood-stained hole in the center of the floor. The sight of that cavern unravels my fading sanity, and I look down at the girl in my arms as the truth I've denied implodes in my mind.

Isabella is dead.

A gut-wrenched groan erupts from my soul, and I collapse atop her body, unable to move as the unspeakable reality crashes into me. My stomach heaves, my eyes burn, and my mind screams in an endless loop.

Isabella is dead.

Isabella is dead.

Isabella is dead.

ISABELLA IS DEAD.

I hold her even closer and lay my head on her chest, the horrid silence within it perverse enough to seem violent. She is so still, so frighteningly still, yet I somehow expect her to rest her bony hand atop my head, whispering all will be well.

But all is not well. It can never be well because Isabella is dead.

I sit up with a start, the injustice of it all rushing to my mind in a flash of fury.

Isabella—the broken, abandoned girl who only wanted to be loved—is dead.

Isabella—the lonely, grieving mother who buried her only son—is dead.

Isabella—the beautiful, fearless woman who looked at me and saw someone worth saving—is dead.

And someone is going to pay for that.

I shake off the paralyzing swell of sentimentality and reclaim a shred of my sanity, galvanized by rage. Banishing my pain to the back of my mind, I evaluate where we are and what needs to be done.

I could take her and simply walk out of the prison's front doors. But no one deserves to see her like this, and no one else will.

This a promise I can keep.

I hold her flush against my body and wrap the blanket around her, shielding her face from view. Coming to my feet, I head to the door and catch sight of the writing on the surrounding walls. The space I had earlier earmarked for her epitaph seems to glow in its nakedness, and I make but a cursory apology.

Her last words belong only to me.

They attempt to repeat themselves in my mind, but I tamper them down. Should I travel that emotional road, there will be no going forward or back.

Only a steeping in eternal stagnation and want.

So I silence my thoughts and head out, stepping into the elevator leading to my chamber. There is nothing here of real consequence, and anything haste omits can be replaced. Still unable to speak, I send a written message to my traveling servant, and within minutes, there are two short raps on the hidden door to the outside world.

Jasper appears with a respectful nod. "The car is waiting, Mr. Masen."

The car is in fact a cavernous sport utility vehicle. I tuck her into my lap as Jasper closes the door, keeping my eyes steadily forward as we make our way away from the prison.

I saw little reason to keep a semi-permanent residence, but even a nomadic executioner needs a room of his own. Jasper's portly wife Alice maintains the house, her reticence even more impressive than his. Granted, she is a mute but can communicate more with a look than should be humanly possible.

I seldom meet her eyes.

Even with Jasper's careful navigation of the road, the journey is bumpier than I would like. Intellectually I understand _she_ cannot feel it, but I am yet aggravated by the notion of her discomfort.

But recalculating our route would require me to address Jasper, and I still cannot speak. So I hold her tighter, tucking her head into the crook of my arm. I should have brought the pillow, I now realize, but it is too late for regrets now.

Once at the house, I enter my private quarters and close the door behind me. The entire residence is private, to be sure, but the Whitlocks have free rein everywhere but here.

Not that there's much to see.

I lay her on the settee across from my barely-used chifforobe, propping her in place with decorative pillows. Heading into the bathroom, I clean the cavernous clawfoot tub before filling it halfway with water. I set a stack of towels on a nearby stool and search the appropriate drawer for basic hair-dressing tools.

For the actual bathing, I open the cabinet and expect to find neatly stacked bars of glycerin soap. I am therefore stunned to find an assortment of pampering products in a variety of scents—golden honeysuckle, forbidden orchid, blackberry woods. I have never used such things and would never permit them in my house.

Which means someone else has been here.

My mind returns to the moment of our arrival when Alice stood near the threshold of my apartment. She ignored the bundle in my arms altogether, fixing her unblinking gaze on me instead. Upon closer inspection, I now recall the awareness in her stare, as if she knew something I did not, and the memory does not anger me as it probably should.

But why would she have placed these things here? Did she assume I was bringing home someone who might have need of them? How could she have known that?

 _Does it matter?_ my thoughts answer back.

No, I realize.

No, it does not matter. In the face of what I am facing, very little does.

Returning to my task, I choose what I hope will be a subtle scent—something called "lavender fields"—available as shampoo, body wash, and scented body oil. The heady fragrance wraps around my heart like a vice, and I make an immediate adjustment.

No speaking.

No breathing.

With a heavy breath, I return to her, surprised to find her exactly where I left her. My surprise wounds me afresh, reminding me of that which I have determined to forget. It is impossible to _forget_ , mind, but I cannot allow myself to remember.

Not if I am to do what I must do.

Gathering her in my arms, I carry her to the bathroom and set her on my lap. She is slightly less limp than before, and I ignore that fact as I remove her clothes. Any lingering lust dies immediately upon contact with her frigid, rigid skin. There is no warmth or pleasure to be found here, no tremble or blush of nerves, and in the absence of her reactions, there is only duty and obligation.

So I dispense quickly with her clothes, paying no attention to the sweeps and swells of her bare body. I set her carefully in the tub, the immediate darkening of the water suggesting I will need to drain and fill the tub at least twice during this process.

Four times, in fact, for I must also wash her hair.

To my surprise, her tresses are naturally wavy and two shades lighter than they appeared before. I comb and brush them with care, using more of the mysterious products from my cabinet. Once the knots and tangles are gone, I fashion her hair into a simple side braid, fastening its damp end with an elastic tie from the aforementioned cabinet.

Once she is patted dry and lightly oiled, I wrap her in a towel and carry her to my bedchamber. I have no need of the bed, but the room's size and design all but demanded it. I seldom bow to convention, so my decision to do so in that case surprised me greatly.

But nothing prepares me for the surprise I find after flicking on the light.

A long-sleeved boat-neck gown lies across my bed, its azure hue standing out against the creamy duvet. Its subtle shimmer dances in the soft light, tearing my focus from the associated underthings beside it.

Before I can wonder how I will address the inexcusable breach of propriety that brought these things in here, my gaze lands on a folded note tented inside the left one of a pair of black ballet flats. I reach for it with shaky fingers, almost afraid to read its contents.

" _I am sure you will pardon the breach of propriety, for I could not allow you to bury her in those rags. Besides which, blue is her color."_

Slapped by the written echo of my recent thoughts, I flash back to a brief exchange I once had with Jasper. I had not visited this residence for two years, but when I arrived that afternoon, unannounced and black-eyed with thirst, three deer were tied to the fence near the backdoor of my chamber.

After drinking my fill and cleaning myself, I asked Jasper how long the deer had been there. When he told me they were secured that morning, I demanded to know why. And he looked at me rather blandly and said, "Alice knows things."

Blinking back to the present, I decide not to wonder at her prescience and revel instead in its serendipity. The gown fits _her_ as though designed with her delicate frame in mind, the sleeves just long enough to hide the bandages I earlier placed around her damaged wrist. I slip her stockinged feet into the slippers and lay her against my pillows. And as I gaze upon her there, clean and content, I stop cold.

What in the hell am I supposed to do with her now?

I know enough to know I skipped some critical steps in my...preparations. But treating her as if she were... that is, to do to her body what is typically done in cases where a person is no longer...

If the thoughts are unthinkable, then the acts themselves are blasphemous.

But she cannot lie here for all eternity, and I have no idea what to do now.

And there is no one to help me figure it out.

"What a beautiful gown!" comes the voice over my shoulder. "I look like Sleeping Beauty."

I jerk upright and nearly tumble over my own feet.

"Although... it was Cinderella who wore blue," the curious voice continues. "But she was a blonde with an updo, so that's not right either. Belle was a brunette, but did she ever wear a braid?"

With all that has happened in my life thus far, I have seen and heard enough to believe I have seen and heard it all.

But this... _whatever_ this is... I have no words to describe or wherewithal to fight.

So I turn around with a heavy sigh and am only marginally surprised by what I see.

And by Isabella's smile, she isn't surprised at all. "Hello, Alastair."

* * *

 **Well. I didn't see that coming!**

 **Seriously, I really didn't. Had totally different plans for this chapter, but Isabella is a stubborn little minx.**

 **SO...as I said above, my first novel,** _ **Another 4.0**_ **, was just released on Kindle (via Amazon) this week, and I am sooooo excited! It's a coming-of-age story about a straight-A sophomore trying to balance boys and books at Howard University. If you'd like to check it out—and I hope you do!—just search "Another 4.0" at Amazon. Print version to come in a week or two.**

 **Thanks for the support...with both the novel and my stories here. You all are the BEST.**

 **See you soon with more from Edward's bedchamber! XOXO**


	25. Author's Note on Chapter 24

**Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer owns everything in the Twiverse. No copyright infringement intended.**

 **So this isn't an update, and I apologize for getting your hopes up. But after the response to yesterday's update, I felt like I needed to say something sooner than later.**

 **First of all, THANK YOU for all the well-wishes on the publishing of my book. I'm so thrilled so many of you have expressed an interest in reading it. If you do read it, I sure hope you'll let me know what you think!**

 **As far as this story goes, there was a lot of confusion. Like, A LOT. Some of it was expected, and I'd already had plans for clarity at the very beginning of the next update. But one thing that stumped just about everyone needs to be cleared up now:**

 _" **Alastair" is what Isabella called Edward before he told her his real name (see chapters four and five). He's not another character.**_

 **I sincerely apologize for the confusion there. I often forget this story has been updating for almost a year, so relatively minor things that happened in the beginning of the story are easy to forget. I was so excited to update this story again and felt TERRIBLE after so many of you seemed to think Alastair was an actual character and not just another name for Edward. Also...confusion about Alastair revealed what seems like brewing reader frustration with this story, and that's the other reason I wanted to say something now.**

 **I realize reading a WIP is a risk. Not just because writers don't always finish their stories—which is certainly a concern—but because you're getting the story in increments and often at a less-than-ideal pace. That has certainly been the case with "The Last Word," and well...as an avid reader, I totally get it.** **And because I get it, I want to sincerely thank you for the trust you show in sticking with this story. I know it's going slower than some of you would like, the plot is often more opaque than obvious, and I have the nerve to sometimes update only once a month.**

 **But please know I won't leave you hanging. My plans for this story have changed a few times...often because of reader feedback...but the coming end is pretty much what I'd always envisioned. I don't know if you'll be satisfied with it—reader satisfaction isn't something writers can ever guarantee, but that's the risk we take—but I promise to tie all loose ends in some form or fashion.**

 **Anyway, the next chapter is about two weeks out, but I wanted to tell you now that Alastair IS Edward.** **As for everything else that confused you, I'm afraid you'll have to just trust me a little longer.** **I hope you're still willing to do that.**

 **See you soon :)**


	26. Chapter 25

**Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer owns everything in the Twiverse. So there's that.**

 **Just in case you skipped the author's note after Chapter 24, I do apologize for the confusion about Alastair/Edward. At the last minute, I decided to have Isabella call Edward by his former alias, and it proved to be the wrong move. My entire bad.**

 **As for the other thing that confused (and angered) some of you, here's to hoping at least one of those issues gets solved momentarily.**

* * *

 **The Last Word – 25**

I open my mouth but nothing comes out. My throat is likely parched, as I have not had anyone to drink today, and despite my immortality, I have been known to find it difficult to speak when I am exceptionally thirsty.

But under present circumstances, I am all but sure my silence is rooted in a total loss for words.

And a total abandonment of my sanity.

"I should hope you won't give me the silent treatment," she says. "Seems ridiculous to summon me here only not to speak."

At her word choice, I develop a serious frown, blinking in continued silence.

"You seem confused." Her furrowed brows mimic mine. "Surely you do not believe I am here by any choice of my own."

"What..." I clear my throat and try again. "What do you mean 'summon'?"

Her gaze shifts sharply, sadly, behind me. "Are you going to make me say it?"

I turn around and am almost sure that I see the large bed with Isabella's body lying comfortably upon it...

Yet I heard her voice behind me so clearly a moment ago.

I shake my head—clearing it of nothing—and become certain that my senses have taken permanent leave.

"I'm sorry," she says from somewhere back there. "This was supposed to help you."

"I don't understand."

"I know you frequently suspected me of sorcery." Despite the despondency in her tone, a teasing lilt remains. "But even I cannot be in two places at once."

"Then why are you here?"

"Because I am _not_ here. And... and I imagine you are having trouble facing that."

What?

Oh.

 _Oh._

I approach the bed where _she_ lies, closing my eyes as my hand closes around her very real ankle. I let the awareness permeate my mind—her cool, stiffness contrasted with the defining warmth she used to produce—and that crumbling wall of my sanity shores itself up.

"You are not here." It physically wounds me to say so. "That is, your body is here before me. But you... you are not really... not really here behind me."

"No," she whispers. "I am not."

"So you are only here... back there, I mean." I swallow hard. "Because I 'brought' you here... 'summoned' you, as you said."

"Yes."

"Then I suppose the lone remaining question is..." I turn to face her, dragging a hand down my face. "...why did I bring you here?"

She stares at me blankly, and it is then I confirm she is indeed an apparition. For the woman I know... _knew_... would have jumped at the chance to fill in those blanks or snark a response at the very least. But this cheap imitation...

She is useless.

"I'm sorry," she says, and somehow I believe her. "I thought my presence would be more help."

"So did I." I collapse on the bench at the foot of the bed, my back to the very real body resting behind me. "But nothing is going as planned."

"So there is a plan?" she asks.

"There is." My voice hardens. "One I am all too eager to execute."

"Then what's the problem?"

"You!" I gesture toward the body on the bed. "What am I to do with you?"

"Does it matter?"

"Does it matter?" I come to my feet, ignoring the lunacy of arguing with a figment of my imagination. "Of course it matters!"

"Why?"

"Because I..." The words are on the tip of my tongue, but I cannot speak them. Not until I complete my mission. "Because it matters."

"Okay." She clasps her hands in front of her. "Then do what makes the most sense."

I run my hands through my hair, stopping short of yanking it out by the root. None of this makes sense. Not a single thing that has happened since this morning... but certainly in the last hour... has made a lick of sense.

But I push those thoughts aside and drag my attention to the woman on my bed. Something must be done about her... with her... and soon.

"I must preserve her dignity," I say aloud, unsure of whom I'm talking to anymore. "That is what matters most. No one else can ever touch her. No one else can ever see her, and no one else can ever hurt her again."

The thought of burying her in earth turns me completely off, and I do not like the idea of her languishing at sea. Cremation is equally out of the question, and though I would be honored to house her in my quarters forever, she cannot stay here.

She would surely be discovered, and I cannot say for sure how Alice would react.

In a sudden flash, I envision the perfect place and know exactly what must be done.

"Then I have helped you after all," the apparition says, and I look up to find a small smile about her lips. "You're welcome."

I part my lips to speak her name, but nothing comes out.

"Yes?" she asks anyway.

"What did... what did you mean by your last words to me?"

This time, instead of the silence I expect, her brown eyes brighten, and her smile doubles in size. "I am pretty sure you know."

"What?"

"See you later."

And with an encore of those damn three words, she disappears before my eyes. I gasp at the loss and wave my hand through the abandoned air. With a heavy heart, I turn once more to face the bed. There is nothing left to do but what needs to be done.

And do it I must.

 ***** the last word *****

I return to the house in a week's time. Jasper meets me at my private hangar, but there is no trace of his wife at the house. I think of inquiring after her whereabouts until I realize I am better off not knowing.

Entering my private room with purpose, I intend to keep my gaze from the bed. But its current emptiness reminds me of my errand, and my intentions dissolve into memory.

With no ideal options—a fault I wholly recognize as mine—I crossed the arctic plains of a virginal stretch of Antarctica with my precious cargo firmly affixed to my back. I cursed myself the entire way, not wanting to leave her anywhere for any reason, let alone in a frozen wasteland at the opposite end of the world. But I had a mission to complete, and that could not happen until I knew she was safe.

So I picked my way up a mountain in the northern-most region, traversing an inaccessible face of its most jagged side. She was a veritable ice queen by the time I carved out the hollow that would become her earthly home, and I tucked her in with fear and trembling. I neither spoke nor prayed as I watched her there, but when her last words rose once more in my mind, fear and trembling succumbed to rage and masochism.

And I turned away, never again to return.

Now at home, I shower quickly and change my clothes. A thin unmarked folder rests in the center of my otherwise bare desktop. Flipping through its contents, I finalize the details of my plan. Though anxious to start and finish, I wish not to be hasty or conspicuous. Stealth is a vampire's ultimate weapon, and in this war, I shall deploy it with decisiveness.

The stakes demand nothing less.

Grabbing my packed satchel, I turn out the light and lock the door, nodding to Jasper on my way out. As I toss my bag into the backseat of my nondescript sedan, Alice appears out of nowhere.

"What the hell are you doing here?" I bark at her.

She doesn't respond, but her penetrating gaze holds me in place. Her eyes seem to glow as they stare at me unblinking, and her total lack of fear truly alarms me.

The proverbial spell breaks when Alice sighs, and she shakes her head once.

"It won't work," she says.

"What won't work?"

She startles me by placing her hand against my cheek, its searing warmth seeping into my flesh. Her gaze softens, and the ache in her voice would break my heart if I had one. "I hope she was right."

She drops her hand and turns away, and I look up to find Jasper watching from the window. Our gazes lock for the briefest of moments, and I recall once more what he said about her gifts. I don't know what she "knows" or what thinks she just told me, but I am no less determined to end what has already begun.

Having memorized the coordinates of my destination, I let my mind wander as I make my way there. Although I have much to think about, most trains of thought lead to places I have no wherewithal to travel. So I choose instead to recite the latest translation of _Beowulf_ , feasting on its images of revenge and carnality.

This is more like it.

Upon punctual arrival at my temporary home, I immediately place a call to the number in my folder. The element of surprise is no concern, but the fecklessness of humans remains a possible complication, and I smother relief when the proper person answers. According to Jasper's information, my main target retains most of the ill-gotten gains from his infamous lie, and his public persona maintains an air of authenticity. Yet loutish leopards never change their spots, and that callous cat still dabbles in degenerate behavior.

If the price is right.

So after a brief negotiation with the person on the phone—whose reaction to the agreed upon amount is almost comically enthusiastic—a meeting time and place are set. I have no intention of appearing, of course, but I am optimistic that my no-show will result in an argument that will lead them back to their lair.

It is the ideal spot for what will come next.

I hide in the adjacent building to overhear the conversation that will result from my absence, and neither party disappoints. They trade accusations and insults for the better part of an hour until one of them grows weary of the exercise. He decides to head home, and with no better options, she has little choice but to follow.

My focus is razor sharp as their steps draw nearer, and my body hums with anticipation. I recline in the overpriced chair in the corner, a casual ankle crossed atop my knee, and my keen gaze trained on the door.

The keys jingle before one of them turns in the lock, and I lick my lips as the light from the hallway places two figures in shadow.

"I said I was sorry." She rolls her eyes as he huffs behind her. "Why are you still pissed?"

"Because clients like that don't come every day, Vicki." He all but slams the door. "And I know it's your damn fault he didn't show."

"Well, what do you want me to do?"

"I want you to shut the hell up for once!" He goes to flick the light switch on the wall. "Can you do that?"

As the lights come on, Vicki's eyes widen on a scream, and she reaches behind her to grip his arm. "Jamie, someone's here!"

"What?" He turns and sees me, and despite his surprise, his beady eyes narrow. "And who the fuck are you?"

"Hello, Jamie." A slow smile spreads across my face. "I am the fuck who's going to kill you."

* * *

 **I hope the first part of the chapter cleared up some things and that y'all are still with me. I feel like I say that a lot, but I always mean it.**

 **Love and light to you all. Next chapter by the end of the month! XO**


	27. Chapter 26

**Disclaimer: Twilight? Not mine. But don't steal my plot-it's rude.**

 **We've reached 500 reviews, y'all! I am THRILLED and surprised. Not many people are checking for a tragedy in which a main character dies, but I am truly awed by the trust you show in continuing with this story. THANK YOU.**

 **Having said that, I'm really nervous about this chapter. This kind of thing is really out of my comfort zone, and it's especially to get into such a dark headspace at the merriest time of year. Some of you wanted Edward to tear James a new one for Christmas, and well...**

 **I ho-ho-hope you like what I've done here.**

 **(Longest chapter so far. Pardon any mistakes; I was trying to get this to you ASAP.)**

* * *

 **The Last Word – 26**

I keep my gaze averted, not wanting to tip my otherworldly hand too soon, but Jamie is too much a coward to meet my eyes. He shakes his head in confusion as his red-headed companion holds her breath beside him. "What the fuck did you say?"

"Was I at all unclear?" I inspect my fingernails, already bored with the sound of his voice. "I am here to kill you."

He laughs, dragging his hand across his mouth. His outward bravado is a screen; internally he wonders if this is some sort of prank or a scare tactic from an unsatisfied customer.

Either way, the truth never occurs to him, and his ignorance is delicious.

"Jamie..." Vicki whimpers, digging her red talons into his sleeve. "What the hell is going on?"

"It's okay, baby." Jamie turns to face her, huffing a laugh. "This asshole was just leaving."

I pluck a speck of dirt from my pants. "I don't think so."

"Look, buddy." He makes a show of gesturing with his hands, but I notice his refusal to come any closer. "I don't know who the fuck you are or what sort of game you're playing..."

I fix him with a red-eyed glare. "Do I look like I'm playing?"

His eyes widen comically as he notes the color of mine, and the seductive scent of his fear invades my lungs. I feast on its nuances without taking my eyes off him, and my sudden grin enriches the aroma.

"Oh my god..." Vicki releases Jamie's arm on a sigh, her thoughts consumed with the need to escape. I could let her go, given that she is not my main target. But she is guilty of sleeping with _her_ boyfriend... and for laughing at _her_ pain when they got caught... and for who knows what other atrocities during _her_ pregnancy and beyond... and she is still with him, benefitting from a freedom acquired at _her_ precious expense.

And for that, Vicki must pay.

So when she turns to bolt for the exit, I fly from my chair and meet her at the door, gripping the handle with a tilt of the head. "And where do you think you're going?"

She screams and stumbles backwards, reaching for Jamie who is still staring at my vacated chair. When she makes contact with his fingers, he yanks them away, whirling around in shock. His heart hammers in his chest as he gapes at me, the quickening thump like music to my ears.

"Drugs." Jamie drags a shaky hand down his face. "It has to be drugs."

"What are you talking about?" Vicki asks.

"When we were out with Marcus and Felix last night... that last drink they bought me tasted funny." He nods, eager to confirm his theory. "That has to be it."

"So this isn't really happening?" She sounds equally dubious and hopeful. "He... he isn't really here?"

"Exactly." Jamie forces a chuckle as he runs his hands through his thinning hair. "We're still coming down from whatever they gave us, and none of this is real."

"Is that so?" I nod in appreciation. "Let's just test that theory, shall we?"

In a flash, I grab Vicki by the collar and raise her off the ground, her legs and arms flailing as she gapes at me. "Does this look real?" I ask him.

"Jamie!" Vicki rasps in my grasp. "Help me!"

"Fuck that," he mumbles too low for her to hear, his thoughts proposing an escape through the window. Even now, he plays to his basest, slimiest instincts, and the proof of it makes me sick.

I meet Vicki's terrified gaze and drop my voice to a whisper. "Be quiet."

She falls immediately silent, her tearful gaze darting to Jamie. He keeps his back to her, and when his rejection hits her heart, I set her down.

"Go away," I tell her. "And do not come back."

She nods rigorously, wiping her tear-stained face, and I deposit her in the hallway. At the sound of the front door locking, Jamie turns around, looking frantically behind me.

"You let her go?"

"Does it matter?"

"Hell, yeah it matters!" He kicks over a wobbly end table. "She's the fucking reason you're here!"

I lean against the door. "Oh?"

"She was the one you talked to on the phone, the one who made the appointment to meet. So she was the one who did or said something stupid and fucked it all up. I mean, that's why you're here and all pissed off, right?"

I chuckle sadly. "Of course you blame her."

"Well, who else should I blame?" He turns away, throwing up his hands. "Every problem I've ever had was based on some fucking woman fucking it up."

His mind flips through an assortment of feminine faces, and when he lingers on the one I can never forget, I am across the room and slapping him across the face before I know what has happened. The impact sends him into the very table he earlier knocked over, and he grabs his face, staring up at me in shock.

"What the fuck?"

I flex my fingers, satisfied by their gentle stinging. "You should watch your mouth."

He hacks up a phlegmy wad, spitting it onto his faux hardwood floor. "You broke my fucking tooth, asshole!"

"I am about to break your face," I reply calmly. "But first I would like some answers."

"Fuck you!" He scrambles to his feet, stepping around the broken table to get away from me. "And the bitch who had you."

"Tell me about Isabella Swan."

Jamie stops in his tracks, his thoughts skidding to an identical halt. "What?"

Speaking her name once was excruciating, and I bear down to do it again. "Tell me about Isabella Swan."

He plays off the sudden panic with a shrug. "Can't you Google it?"

"Yes. But you knew her intimately."

"I said everything I had to say in court." His steps falter, but he continues to the window. "Ain't nothing else."

"I see." I crack my knuckles, the sound echoing through the silence. "And is that your final answer?"

"Yeah."

"Ah." I nod, cracking my neck as well. "It's the wrong one."

I leap through the air and land between Jamie and the window, closing both hands around his throat. Jamie slaps at my hands in futility, his cries of pain strangled by the tightening of my grip.

"Yes, Jamie..." I feel myself growing aroused by his suffering. "Yes..."

Jamie's breathing grows fainter and slower, and despite my compulsion to see him dead, suffocating is too easy an out.

I shove him to the floor where he collapses in a pitiful heap, yanking open his shirt collar and gasping for breath. He crawls away, sniveling and panting, and as I watch him scramble toward the wall, I see how easy it would be to creep up from behind and squash his head, to watch his spilled brain ruin the bottom of my boots.

But even that is too merciful a death.

Alice's voice now decides to echo in my mind, and I toss it aside, having no time to contemplate her cryptic words.

But my silence has given Jamie time to recover, and as he stands by the window, he suddenly laughs. "Okay. You broke a few teeth. Way to go, asshole!"

His outburst confuses me. "I'm sorry?"

"This little 'vengeance is mine' shtick you got going is pretty good, and throwing out Vicki was a nice touch. But whatever Isabella may have..."

I blur into Jamie's face, widening my red eyes. "Do not speak her name."

He puts up defensive hands. "S-s-sure, buddy. Whatever you say."

Although he stammers, he doesn't seem afraid enough. And a quick scan of his thoughts reveals he isn't taking me seriously.

Perhaps I have been unclear.

As Jamie parts his lips to utter more tripe, I grab a fistful of his hair, intending to drag and cuff him to a repurposed dining room chair. But my supernatural grip is stronger than I remember, and when I go to pull him toward me, I yank out a large section of hair and scalp instead.

Jamie screams, covering his bleeding baldness with shaky fingers. I toss the over-moussed mess to the floor, wanting to bleach my hands clean.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" Jamie is back in the window, frantically fumbling with the metal latch.

"Jumping, eh?" I stroll toward him with my hands behind my back. "I should have known you would take the easy way out. But you're wasting your time."

He jiggles the latch with increasing frustration. "That's what you think."

"No. That's what I know. For three simple reasons: One, the building has been evacuated, so no one will hear you scream. Two, the window is welded shut, and the fire escape has been dismantled. And three..." I blur into his face. "I am determined to watch you die."

As his eyes widen in horror, I grab Jamie's wrist and pull, yanking his arm out of socket. He howls in pain, cursing me and everyone I've ever met, and I plant him in the chair as planned. The hand and feet restraints are fastened within seconds, and he struggles against them.

"Let me go, you crazy fuck!"

"This, I knew, would be the easy part," I say almost to myself. "Someone with your faux bravado is simple enough to trap with the right bait. But what to do with you now?"

Jamie hacks up a ball of bloody phlegm and spits in my face. "Do something with that, you creepy asshole."

I scoop the wad into my hand, bringing it to my nose for a sniff. The scent of his blood is unappetizing but gives me pause not the less.

"Intriguing offer." I wipe the phlegmy ball off my hands with his jacket. "But shall I take you up on it?"

"What?!"

"You offering me your blood." I shrug a shoulder. "It's an interesting idea."

"What the fuck are you..."

"I mean the thought of slicing into your sallow skin and letting that warm red river roll down your neck..." I run the nail of my index finger along that path. "It would certainly abate my current thirst."

The words begin to congeal in Jamie's mind, and the blood drains from his face. "Thirst?"

"And watching you flail and flop as I sucked your body dry has a distinct appeal, killing two birds with one stone as it were."

"You are one sick fuck."

"Yes, But even I couldn't bear the thought of poisoning my body with the life-blood of yours." I sigh with a sad shake of the head. "So I'll have to resort to other methods of making my point."

I drop to a crouch in front of him, surveying his body. In a flash of inspiration, I remove his shoes and socks, and he snorts nervously. "A foot fetish? What the fuck, man?"

"Fetish?" I run my hand across his left foot. "I guess that's one way of putting it."

Jamie howls in pain as I snap the bones in his pinkie toe. I do not intend to break the skin, but my supernatural strength gets in the way, and the stubby toe comes off in my hand.

"Dammit!" I toss the bloody appendage to the floor. "That wasn't supposed to happen. Let's try that again."

The same thing happens on the next two toes on that foot, frustrating me almost as much as Jamie's whining. So when it's time to switch to the left foot, I just step on it, shattering all the bones at once.

"Fuuuuck!" Jamie screeches, rocking against the restraints.

"Why didn't I think of that before?" I stand back with a satisfied smile. "Your right arm is useless with the dislocation, but I like to have things balanced."

I grab his right hand, slowly crushing each bone in each finger one by one, the chorus of Jamie's agony and the _crack!_ of snapping bone bringing much-needed joy to my heart.

"Ohhh..." Jamie whines through tears and snot. "Oh, fuuuc..."

I slam my hand on the dining table, smashing it in half. "Shut your filthy mouth."

"I'm sorry!" Jamie whines, sniffling back tears and snot. "But I..."

"What did I just say?"

"But I have something you want!"

My eyes narrow as I tilt my head to stare at him. "What could you possibly offer me?"

"You...you have a hard-on for Isabella, right?"

The words are objectionable, unspeakable on their own, but so blasphemous from his lips in particular, that I am rendered speechless, a fact which encourages him to continue.

"I mean, that's why you're here, right? She talked a bunch of shit and now you're here to teach me a lesson? Hey, no judgment! We've all gone slumming from time to time."

Still I stare at him, flummoxed by his audacity. Or is it his stupidity? I have said I am here to kill him, I know he understands _she_ is my motivation, yet this is how he speaks to me?

Perhaps suffeirng has made him suicidal.

"...or whatever you're into," he is saying. "But if you want it, I've got some of her stuff."

I close my eyes, swallowing the flood of venom filling my mouth. The need to rip him apart is nearly overwhelming now, and I am running out of reasons to postpone it.

"And if... if you let me go, I'll give you anything you want." He grimaces in pain, swallowing hard. "I mean, I even... even have pictures. Good ones, if you know what I mean."

I slowly open my eyes. "Did you say 'good ones' ?"

"Yeah." His lusty chuckle makes my frozen skin crawl. "I never told Vicki about them, but I... I knew they'd come in handy someday. I mean, Isabella was a dead fish in the sack, but a hot naked chick is a hot naked chick."

"So you..." I swallow hard. "You have naked pictures of... of _her?_ "

The high pitch of my voice must sound like interest, for Jamie nods, angling his head toward the right side of the apartment. "Yeah. And she had a banging body. You know, before."

The mention of her body reminds me of the times I held her body that day... before she abandoned it for an eternal alternative.

And how and why I saw it naked... before I dressed her in funereal finery.

And ultimately the last time I saw it... before leaving her on a frozen altar.

 _She_ was a lot of things... before...

...before _he_ stole who she was.

...before _he_ took the only thing she ever made.

...before _he_ left her with nothing but me.

"So how 'bout it?" His voice snaps me back to the present, and I lock away those memories as he smiles. "Do we have a deal?"

"We do." My eyes blacken as I grip the arms of his chair. "And the deal is you're going to die."

"What are you..."

I grab Jamie's left arm and rip it cleanly from his shoulder before tossing the chair with him in it into a framed wall print near the kitchen counter. Jamie crashes to the floor in a mangled pile of wood, glass, and blood, and I approach him slowly, twirling his arm like a majorette's baton.

"What the..." Jamie moans, coughing through his painful attempts to breathe. "What the fuck are you on, man?"

"I am on a mission." I toss his arm aside. "To bring you hell on earth."

I sift through the mess to lift him by his ear, annoyed when the appendage tears away from his face. As Jamie screams and writhes on the floor, I study the fleshy mass, frowning at the oversized diamond stud in its lobe.

Typical.

I chuck the ear over my shoulder and drop to a crouch in front of him. "Shut up."

Jamie clamps his lips together, tears of fury shining in his eyes, and all I can see are _her_ tears as she lay on me that seminal day. I remember them raining on my bare chest, coating my parched soul as she poured out her pain.

The pain his selfishness inflicted.

"Why?" I ask. "Just tell me why."

He glares at me. "Why what?"

"Why did you do it?" I pretend to study his face, my mind otherwise occupied. "Why did you do that to her?"

In the ensuing silence, I scan his thoughts for the smallest shred of remorse. But as he sifts through an assortment of possible replies, one breaks through the noise and comes out of his mouth:

"Fuck her, and fuck you."

Venom boils in my veins, and I crack my neck with a hiss. "Very well."

I slam my flattered hand into his face, breaking his nose with the heel of my palm. My fingers fan out to grip his face, and I dig into his pale skin, watching with pleasure as my nails scrape the skull bone beneath. Dragging my nails down toward his chin, I grin with glee as they leave bloody, jagged lines in his nose, forehead, and cheeks.

Releasing him to the floor, I flick away the gummy nastiness under my nails while he flops onto his back, panting and moaning like a wounded dog. I stomp on both knees, effectively paralyzing him, and survey the damage with ambivalence. I'd initially planned to drag this out for a few months, locking him in and intermittently returning just to fuck with his head. I wanted him to feel as lost, as forgotten, and as fearful as _she_ did.

But he would have to have her heart to suffer as she did, and... that's obviously impossible.

I'd planned to cut off his member and make him eat it, just because it sounds degrading. But I'd have to touch it first, and even I, sick fuck that I am, have standards.

And now, with all the bleeding from his head, shoulder, knees, and toes, he may soon pass out, and I cannot allow him to slip quietly into death from a state of unconsciousness.

He's heading for hell, and I want to send him off with a bang.

"Jamie. Hey!" I kick him in the ribs, stepping to the other side of his body to avoid the vomit spilling from the side of his mouth. "Look at me."

His eyes flutter, and I wait for them to focus on my face.

"This is for Isabella."

"Please," he sneers in doubt. "You don't have the balls to..."

The sight of my raised, bent leg shuts him, and his eyes widen as I stomp down hard on his chest. My foot crashes through his rib cage, making messy contact with the hardwood floor beneath him. Removing my foot from his chest cavity, I notice the perfect bootprint in the fleshy mass that used to be his heart. As his final breath leaves him in a gurgled whimper, a glorious silence fills the room.

It is finished.

* * *

 **(Pretty sure y'all know it isn't, LOL.)**

 **What did you think? Please let me know!**

 **I won't be back before Christmas, but have a merry, peaceful one if you celebrate. And hey, if you're going through a tough time and need a friend or just a safe place to vent, PM me. Don't think no one cares about your pain because I do. I mean that.**

 **By the way, Lotus Wright and some other awesome fandom ladies are hosting a "Beyond the Bedroom" contest, encouraging us to write stories featuring awkward, hilarious, supernatural, or otherwise unique lemons. Go to the "Beyond the Bedroom" page here on FFN or on Facebook and get those citrus juices flowing! They're accepting entries now through January 19** **th**

 **See you in a few weeks with the aftermath of Edward's actions XOXO**


	28. Chapter 27

**Disclaimer: Nothing in the Twiverse is mine—Stephenie Meyer owns it all. But don't steal my plot. That wouldn't be very nice.**

 **Happy New Year! I hope your 2017 is off to a rocking start so far, and if not, things can always get better!**

 **I know I say this a lot, but THANK YOU for still being here. We are two chapters from the end here, and I hope you'll think it's worth it when we're through.**

 **I think you will. At least, I really really hope you will.**

 **And just to jog your memory, here's the final scene from the previous update:**

"Why?" I ask. "Just tell me why."

He glares at me. "Why what?"

"Why did you do it?" I pretend to study his face, my mind otherwise occupied. "Why did you do that to her?"

In the ensuing silence, I scan his thoughts for the smallest shred of remorse. But as he sifts through an assortment of possible replies, one breaks through the noise and comes out of his mouth:

"Fuck her, and fuck you."

Venom boils in my veins, and I crack my neck with a hiss. "Very well."

I slam my flattered hand into his face, breaking his nose with the heel of my palm. My fingers fan out to grip his face, and I dig into his pale skin, watching with pleasure as my nails scrape the skull bone beneath. Dragging my nails down toward his chin, I grin with glee as they leave bloody, jagged lines in his nose, forehead, and cheeks.

Releasing him to the floor, I flick away the gummy nastiness under my nails while he flops onto his back, panting and moaning like a wounded dog. I stomp on both knees, effectively paralyzing him, and survey the damage with ambivalence. I'd initially planned to drag this out for a few months, locking him in and intermittently returning just to fuck with his head. I wanted him to feel as lost, as forgotten, and as fearful as _she_ did.

But he would have to have her heart to suffer as she did, and... that's obviously impossible.

I'd planned to cut off his member and make him eat it, just because it sounds degrading. But I'd have to touch it first, and even I, sick fuck that I am, have standards.

And now, with all the bleeding from his head, shoulder, knees, and toes, he may soon pass out, and I cannot allow him to slip quietly into death from a state of unconsciousness.

He's heading for hell, and I want to send him off with a bang.

"Jamie. Hey!" I kick him in the ribs, stepping to the other side of his body to avoid the vomit spilling from the side of his mouth. "Look at me."

His eyes flutter, and I wait for them to focus on my face.

"This is for Isabella."

"Please," he sneers in doubt. "You don't have the balls to..."

The sight of my raised, bent leg shuts him, and his eyes widen as I stomp down hard on his chest. My foot crashes through his rib cage, making messy contact with the hardwood floor beneath him. Removing my foot from his chest cavity, I notice the perfect bootprint in the fleshy mass that used to be his heart. As his final breath leaves him in a gurgled whimper, a glorious silence fills the room.

It is finished.

* * *

 **And now, the penultimate chapter.**

 **The Last Word – 27**

I stand over Jamie's battered, breathless body, my gaze glued to the cavern where his heart once resided. His dull eyes are wide with wonder, as if he cannot believe he's dead.

How foolish of him to underestimate me.

The satisfaction of my completed mission floods my veins, and I close my eyes to relish the feeling. It has been years since I have wanted to kill someone so much, longer since anything has roused that darkest part of my soul. Yes, I was an executioner by trade, but outside of a need to terrify the guilty one final time, I found no personal pleasure in the enterprise. Child molesters, serial rapists, misogynistic murderers... they all deserved death, whether at my hands or not. But this time with Jamie was different.

Altogether different.

My heart clenches at the thought, and I lay a hand upon my chest, confused by its exertions. Ridding this world of vermin like Jamie required no great physical effort, aside from controlling my strength so as not to decapitate when I hit him in the face.

Yet my breath comes fast and furious, and I cannot calm down. My limbs are jittery, my mouth arid and free of venom, and were they able, I am fairly certain my palms would be sweating.

What the hell is going on?

I fly to the window and flick it open with a finger, hoping the rush of air will clear my mind. Jamie is dead—and I know that because I killed him—so why does the task feel unfinished? As if there is more to be done?

Is it possible that his death was too quick? That I didn't make him suffer quite enough? The perils of too much blood were certainly under consideration, but I suppose a case could have been made for the merits of spreading out his death over the course of several hours or even days.

But in a basic, practical sense, I couldn't abide the thought of spending more time with him than strictly necessary. Not even in the name of punishing him for his sins. His death was the end, and the means matter not.

So what am I missing here?

As if in reply, a musky yet familiar scent taints the air coming in through the window, and a perplexing moment passes before I recognize it.

She _cannot_ be this stupid.

But sure enough, her insipid lovesick thoughts soon follow, and within two minutes, Vicki's supposedly stealth footsteps echo in the hallway. This must be the reason for my restlessness, the stone I left unturned. And as my former attempt at chivalry failed, I shall not make the same mistake twice.

So I yank open the door, pull Vicki inside, and snap her neck before the door shuts again. She falls to the ground with a heavy thud, her mouth frozen in an "oh" of shock as I shove her body away with my foot. Her head smashes into the corner of a closet door, a sickening crack preceding the scent of flowing blood.

Well, that takes care of that.

I take another deep breath to ingest the full breadth of my triumph, blowing away the anxiety with a long exhale. But once my lungs empty, the pressing discomfort returns, this time with a suffocating vengeance.

I press my fingertips against the expanse above my heart, and it's as if the silent cavern pulses with dissatisfaction. I nearly question it aloud then decide even I am not insane enough to verbally engage with an inanimate object.

I snort at the thought. For am I not also an inanimate object?

But through my scoffing, another thought shoves its way forward, raging into my consciousness with the force of a hurricane:

 _Nothing has changed._

I lean against the nearest wall, gasping for needless breath as the mental assault continues.

 _You may have exacted your revenge..._

I shut my eyes against the words I know are coming.

 _...but Isabella is still dead._

"No."

 _So really, nothing has changed._

"No!"

" _I told you it wouldn't work,"_ Alice's voice whispers in my ear. _"But you wouldn't listen."_

"Shut up."

" _Now only one question remains..."_

"Shut up, Alice!"

" _...was she right?"_

"SHUT UP!" I blur around the room with a roar, destroying furniture and corpses with equal abandon. Lamps and limbs go flying, colliding spectacularly in midair. I grip Jamie's head and squeeze it into nothing, blood and brains splattering onto my face before I toss the mass over my shoulder, not caring where it lands.

I am past the point of caring about anything.

The surrounding carnage approaches comical proportions, and I dance in the damage, sliding along the bloody floor as if on an icy pond during a winter solstice. I am grateful for the foresight to have emptied the building as law enforcement would surely have been called by now, and the thought makes me laugh aloud. I was rather recently a staunch supporter of law enforcement—and an effective one at that, specializing in the practice punishment.

But with Isabella dead, I'm the one being punished.

My laughter chokes off on a sob, and I fist my hand against my mouth, biting down hard enough to break the skin. Pain shoots through my body as I taste my own venom, and I yank away my hand, staring at the jagged wound.

What the hell is wrong with me?

I look around the room, and my brain cramps in a failed attempt to process what I see. This is beyond macabre, beyond sadistic, and even the most depraved immortal would dismiss it as borderline psychotic.

I need to get out of here.

I blur to the window and prepare to jump out, but something stops me. Recalling the lowlight of my conversation with Jamie, I must retrieve the one thing I wish not to leave behind.

A quick scan of the room is difficult with everything tossed about and smashed to kindling... or flesh, as the case may be... but an upended drawer from a cabinet on the right side of the room reveals a nondescript envelope taped to its underside.

Typical.

I snatch the envelope and tear it to shreds, ensuring its sultry contents will never be seen by anyone else's prying eyes.

She deserves at least that.

Only marginally satisfied, as the ache in my chest refuses to relent, I return to the window and jump out, landing silently in the empty alley below. Across the street, my temporary residence awaits, and I rush into the en-suite of the master suite, washing away the evidence of my recent depravity. I fear nothing in the way of pursuit or prosecution, but I wish not to be so conspicuous upon my departure.

But as I step out of the shower, I blink in the face of one startling fact:

I have nowhere to go.

Returning to the prison is out of the question for reasons too numerous to name. I cannot bear to go back to my former home with Alice waiting there with her eerily prescient gaze, and visiting Isabella at her resting place would serve no purpose because...

... because she's dead.

Isabella is dead.

Isabella. Is. Dead.

My knees buckle as a piercing pain shoots through my chest, and I collapse into a graceless heap, gasping once more for breath. My head, my heart, the very hairs on my arms feel as if they are on fire, and the venom in my veins has seemingly turned to acid. I am burning from the inside out, and one thought is to blame.

Isabella is dead.

Isabella is dead.

Another stabbing shot pulses through my brain, and I grab my head, begging it to stop. But it cannot stop and will not stop because Alice is right.

It didn't work because Isabella is still dead.

It didn't matter because Isabella is still dead.

NOTHING MATTERS BECAUSE ISABELLA IS DEAD.

I curl into the fetal position on the damp bath mat, wrapping my arms around my trembling frame. A rolling ball of sorrow swells in my chest, and tearless sobs wrack my body as I wail.

"How you could leave me, Isabella? How you could make me love you only to leave me?"

A low groaning pours from my soul, and I rock alone in desolation, praying for death to come and put me out of my misery.

"And you lied to me," I mutter through trembling lips. "You said you would see me later, but how could you say such a thing when you know I am immortal and unable to leave this life?"

 _"I don't want to you to do anything," she murmured. "I just want you to be here with me."_

 _She brushed her chafed thumb over my bottom lip, and the sensation stunned me into silence. It was a simple gesture of fascination, nothing rehearsed or seductive about it. But the wonder in her eyes as she fixated on my mouth humbled me..._

 _...and aroused me as well._

 _"Can you do that, Edward?" Her voice dropped in volume. "Can you just be here with me?"_

 _"How..." I swallowed hard as her thumb slid gently back and forth. "How can you ask me that when..."_

 _"When what?"_

 _"When you are..." I could barely get out the words. "Leaving me?"_

 _"Yes, I must leave you..." She dropped her hand, and I regretted its loss. "...for now."_

 _"For now?"_

 _A slow smile spread across her face. "Only for now."_

"Only for now?" I clutch my stomach, fighting a violent wave of nausea. "What does that mean? Are you coming back to me?"

The thought brings a smile to my face and me to my feet. Could I see Isabella again? Hold her again? Touch her as I have long since longed to do? Could such a thing actually be possible?

As I ponder the possibilities, I catch my expression in the bathroom mirror—the childlike joy and anticipation lighting my eyes—and the sight strengthens my urge to vomit, and I run heaving toward the toilet. I spit up venom and blood and the last of my hopes, and as I haven't fed in several days, I imagine the worst will soon be over.

But still I hack and heave, my stomach clenching and churning until completely empty, and I slide onto the floor once more, thoroughly abased and spent.

"Do you see what I have become?" I scream into the silence. "Is this the man to whom you planned to return? Or was that too a lie?"

I wait for her previous apparition to return and defend her, but once again, she disappoints.

"Nothing to say? No snarky comments or platitudes left to share? Or are you simply too busy with Charlie to care about what you've done to me?"

My voice cracks, and I shut my eyes against the returning sting of sadness.

"Isabella..." I cover my mouth, ashamed of my neediness. "I can't...I cannot do this. I don't know what you wanted from me, why you insisted on learning me and wanting me..."

 _"You are so beautiful," she whispered. "Like a work of art...Those soulful eyes and strong jaw..." Her lazy gaze ghosted over my face, dropping to my lips. "And, God, that mouth..."_

I drag a hand down my face, brushing my fingertips over my lips. The memory of her kiss burns me there, and I let myself be consumed by the flames, wondering if they could turn me into ash and carry me away.

It would be better than living without her.

 _"You're not 'letting' me die, Edward." She set our entwined fingers atop her breast. "Whether I live, how I live and for whom I live is my choice. And I chose my fate before I ever laid eyes on you."_

 _"Whether I live, how I live and for whom I live is my choice..."_

 _"My choice..._ "

That sense of incompletion I felt in Jamie's apartment comes roaring back to mind, and I gasp at its return.

 _"It is ridiculous that He could let me curse him to the fiery pits of hell and not hold it against me. Ridiculous that someone could love me enough to take my pain and give me peace. Ridiculous that someone could replace my anger and angst about James and replace it with a love that defies logic and eclipses earthly reason."_

 _"At least that part is true."_

 _"Edward, I know this sounds crazy, and well, maybe I am." She met my eyes suddenly. "But do you...do you ever wonder what it would be like to live without that weight?"_

 _I looked at her. "What weight?"_

 _"Your anger at the world, your guilt about the people you murdered, your shame about your current occupation." She came toward me. "Your loneliness and sense of futility, your sadness about those you have loved and lost..."_

 _"No." The word stopped her in her tracks. "It is useless to wonder about things you cannot change."_

 _"But you can change it, Edward! And that...that weight is what He saved me from." That beatific light shone in her eyes again. "Receiving His love lifted all that weight from my heart and let me breathe again, feel something other than wretched and wrecked again. Because hating James didn't change James; it nearly killed me! He is out in the world right now, living his life as if I were never in it. I nursed that rage day after miserable day, and what happened? James lived unaffected, and I was the one drowning..."_

James is dead...killed by these very hands...yet am I not still drowning? And though it has been not an hour since his death, am I not already weary of that weight?

I rub my chest, finding no relief as the question answers itself.

"But what can I do about it?" I ask aloud. "What could I possibly do about any of it now?"

With sudden, shocking clarity, a forsaken image rises in my mind, and the weight in my chest noticeably recedes for the first time since Jamie's death. Though confused by its connection to my current situation, I hold fast to the image, allowing the feelings it inspires, and surprisingly the fog begins to clear.

For better or worse, I know what I must do. And I can only hope it will be enough.

* * *

 **I know. This final moment probably prompted more questions than it answered, but I promise that the next/final chapter (and the epilogue) will explain it all. I hope you'll believe they've been worth the wait.**

 **FYI: February is a huge month for me personally—my birthday, hubby's birthday, and our 10** **th** **wedding anniversary—and I'll be spending the next three weeks editing the rough draft of my second novel for my prereaders. Soooooo excited!**

 **After I finish that edit, I'll be writing fic full-time until my novel is returned, so you can expect the final proper chapter by the end of this month.**

 **Love and light to you all! XOXO**


	29. Chapter 28

**Disclaimer: Twilight and all its Twi-ness? Not mine.**

 **Happy March!**

 **My apologies for disappearing in February. I had a double wisdom tooth extraction on Valentine's Day—SUPER fun!—and the recovery was long, intense, and painful. Now I'm fighting that weird body ache/fatigue thing again, but the first draft of my second novel is with my prereaders, so I've got about a month to do nothing but Fic.**

 **Which gives me time to write the last chapter and epilogue to this story.**

 **This has been a wild, exciting ride for me, and this story is my second-favorite thing I've ever written (** _ **Black Ice**_ **is still first...I think). So sharing this final chapter is difficult and bittersweet. But it's time to let my precious RedEyedEd go, so I will do so now... trembling, uncertain, and terrified.**

 **Much like my precious Edward is right now.**

 **Longest chapter so far, I think. I hope you enjoy it.**

* * *

 **(Oh, and here's the end of Ch27 to jog your memory)**

 _From the end of Chapter 27:_

"Do you see what I have become?" I scream into the silence. "Is this the man to whom you planned to return? Or was that too a lie?"

I wait for her previous apparition to return and defend her, but once again, she disappoints.

"Nothing to say? No snarky comments or platitudes left to share? Or are you simply too busy with Charlie to care about what you've done to me?"

My voice cracks, and I shut my eyes against the returning sting of sadness.

"Isabella..." I cover my mouth, ashamed of my neediness. "I can't...I cannot do this. I don't know what you wanted from me, why you insisted on learning me and wanting me..."

 _"You are so beautiful," she whispered. "Like a work of art...Those soulful eyes and strong jaw..." Her lazy gaze ghosted over my face, dropping to my lips. "And, God, that mouth..."_

I drag a hand down my face, brushing my fingertips over my lips. The memory of her kiss burns me there, and I let myself be consumed by the flames, wondering if they could turn me into ash and carry me away.

It would be better than living without her.

 _"You're not 'letting' me die, Edward." She set our entwined fingers atop her breast. "Whether I live, how I live and for whom I live is my choice. And I chose my fate before I ever laid eyes on you."_

 _"Whether I live, how I live and for whom I live is my choice..."_

 _"My choice..."_

That sense of incompletion I felt in Jamie's apartment comes roaring back to mind, and I gasp at its return.

 _"It is ridiculous that He could let me curse him to the fiery pits of hell and not hold it against me. Ridiculous that someone could love me enough to take my pain and give me peace. Ridiculous that someone could replace my anger and angst about James and replace it with a love that defies logic and eclipses earthly reason."_

 _"At least that part is true."_

 _"Edward, I know this sounds crazy, and well, maybe I am." She met my eyes suddenly. "But do you...do you ever wonder what it would be like to live without that weight?"_

 _I looked at her. "What weight?"_

 _"Your anger at the world, your guilt about the people you murdered, your shame about your current occupation." She came toward me. "Your loneliness and sense of futility, your sadness about those you have loved and lost..."_

 _"No." The word stopped her in her tracks. "It is useless to wonder about things you cannot change."_

 _"But you can change it, Edward! And that...that weight is what He saved me from." That beatific light shone in her eyes again. "Receiving His love lifted all that weight from my heart and let me breathe again, feel something other than wretched and wrecked again. Because hating James didn't change James; it nearly killed me! He is out in the world right now, living his life as if I were never in it. I nursed that rage day after miserable day, and what happened? James lived unaffected, and I was the one drowning..."_

James is dead...killed by these very hands...yet am I not still drowning? And though it has been not an hour since his death, am I not already weary of that weight?

I rub my chest, finding no relief.

"But what can I do about it?" I ask aloud. "What could I possibly do about it now?"

With sudden, shocking clarity, a forsaken image rises in my mind, and the weight in my chest noticeably recedes for the first time since Jamie's death. Though confused by its connection to my current situation, I hold fast to the image, allowing the feelings it inspires, and surprisingly the fog clears.

For better or worse, I know what I must do. And I can only hope it will be enough.

* * *

 **The Last Word – 28**

My trek is slow and arduous, made doubly so as I am navigating based on memory only. There is no one to whom I might appeal to help me reach my destination, no one with any interest in my whereabouts at all.

But under present circumstances, that is for the best.

My mind whirs and worries about what I will find upon my arrival, and I let it run, seeing little sense in trying to prevent the exercise. The shame of my recent activities comes as expected, bringing with it an avalanche of additional regret from other parts of my past. This, too, I allow, wanting the full measure of mental malaise at work while taking this action.

For if it fails, it will not be for any lack of preparedness on my part.

This area is colder than I remember, the tumultuous terrain less forgiving. Vampires change but rarely, so our ability to detect the slightest shift around us is unusually heightened. And were I to close my eyes, I would see everything here as it once was, every _one_ who then existed. I swallow hard as the thoughts flood my mind, trembling a bit as the most egregious of the lot linger behind my lids.

No matter. This is why I came.

I come to a stop in the middle of a barren field, my boots sinking into the slushy snow. There is no need to look around—I know she's here. And even if her thoughts hadn't betrayed her a half-mile ago, I can feel her rage as she rushes me from behind.

She pins me to the ground with a sharp knee in the back, pulling my arms behind me for good measure.

"What the bloody hell are you doing here?" she growls.

"I want to talk to..."

"Your wants, your needs." She presses her knee deeper, and I feel my vertebrae crack. "Have you ever thought about anything else?"

"Irina..."

"Don't you dare speak my name! You haven't the right."

"I'm sorry."

"You should be," she sneers. "But as you'll soon see, you haven't even begun to be sorry."

"Well, well..." The husky voice comes from my right, and I will myself not to tremble. "What have you caught yourself, sister?"

Irina tightens her grip on my arms. "The prodigal pissant has returned."

Kate gasps. "It's a Christmas miracle."

"But it's the middle of the summer."

She cracks her knuckles on a chuckle. "Hence, the miracle."

"Why, sister, where are your manners?" Irina asks slyly. "You have not given him a proper greeting."

"Have I not?" Kate drops to a crouch in front of me, her full lips turned up in a sadistic smile. "How rude of me."

I shut my eyes against the expected onslaught, but the electric shock coursing through my veins is strong enough to make me cry out. My eyes roll in their sockets as Kate grips both sides of my head, the laughter she shares with Irina somehow worth the pain.

"Does it hurt?" Irina asks, her voice curling beside my ear. "Does it make you wish you were dead?"

"God, I hope so," Kate replies for me, as the agony she inflicts allows me only to grunt. "It is the least he deserves."

"Kate!" comes the sharp rebuke above me. "What is the meaning of this?"

Kate does not slack her attack. "Is it not obvious?"

"Tanya!" Irina blurs to her oldest sister, practically dancing with glee. "We've finally got him, sister!"

"So I see." Tanya's voice is startlingly even. "Has he spoken?"

Kate squeezes my head. "No."

"Nor would we care to listen if he did," Irina adds.

Tanya shakes her head. "This is beneath us."

"And beneath us is where he belongs!"

Irina steps on my hand to punctuate her point, and I howl in pain, causing her and Kate to laugh even louder. The plan was to come here and face their wrath in its fullest measure, but as I have not had anyone to drink in days, my resolve to finish what I've started is weak.

And weakening further with every shock Kate sends through my body.

"What is your business here?" Tanya demands of me.

I try to reply, but her sister's assaults render me unintelligible.

"See?" Irina digs her heel into my hand. "He has no words to explain himself."

"And if he did, we could not understand them with the two of you at work." Tanya sighs and looks up. "Kate..."

Shock ripples through Kate, magnifying my pain. "No."

"Sister..."

"Don't 'sister' me! After what he did to the both of you? To our relationship with Carlisle?" The mention of his name causes me a very different sort of pain, and I groan aloud. "He deserves death."

"Tanya, please!" Irina takes her sister's hands. "Do not let him get away with it."

"I am doing no such thing," Tanya replies wearily. "But he knows what he did, and he came here anyway. Do we not owe it to ourselves to discover why?"

Irina and Kate are silent above me, and from the tenor of their thoughts, I fear one of them may just cut off my head and end the matter altogether.

"Kate," Tanya says. "Please."

With muttered curses in their native tongue, Kate shoves me away with a kick to the ribs. Irina laughs, and Tanya can only nod.

As I amble to my feet, I turn slowly to face the three sisters. Though their physical differences make them easily distinct from one another, the look in their eyes is identical.

I need to make my point and fast.

"Thank you for..."

Kate folds her arms. "Spare us the niceties. Why have you come?"

"Did Carlisle send you?" Tanya asks. "Is he the reason you're here?"

I toe the ground with my boot. "Yes."

Irina steps forward. "How is he? Will he be coming too?"

I shake my head. "Uh, no. He won't."

Irina huffs. "I knew it! He's ashamed to face us after what you did and thinks we don't want to be associated with him anymore."

"That is what she said," Kate mutters under her breath.

"But she didn't mean forever, did you, Tanya?" Irina turns to her sister. "You were just mad and doing what was best for us, but it's okay now! So tell Edward that he can tell Carlisle to come back. That he's welcome whenever he wants."

Tanya doesn't reply, and in the silence, I force myself to meet her gaze. And when I do, she gasps, covering her mouth with both hands. "Oh my god."

"What?" Irina asks.

Tanya holds my gaze, shaking her head. "No..."

Kate folds her arms. "Tanya, what has gotten into you?"

Tanya closes her eyes, her hands still covering her mouth. "He's gone."

"What?" her sisters cry together.

"Carlisle." Tanya drops her hands to her sides, her gaze hardening. "He's dead, isn't he?"

I do not blink. "Yes."

Irina falls to the ground. "No!"

Kate's arms are instantly around her sister, her golden eyes watery as she rocks Irina's shuddering body. "I've got you."

"Kate, get her out of here," Tanya whispers.

"Noooo!" Irina howls as Kate's grip locks around her body. "I want to know why! I demand to know why!"

"Now, Kate!" Tanya snaps.

Kate looks at me, her thoughts loud and clear. _"Haven't you done enough?"_

"I'm sorry," I say aloud, but Kate rolls her eyes and speeds away with Irina. The silence between Tanya and me is messy and thick, but I have no right to break it. Her mind is blank, and I should not be surprised that she would insulate herself from my gift.

I deserve no advantage here.

Tanya tilts her head back and forth, humming a complicated aria. I have seen her do this before—before, in fact, she expelled my sire and me from her sight—so I realize this is her way of taking a deep breath.

"Carlisle is dead?" she asks.

"Yes."

"When?"

The question surprises me. "Um, what year is this?"

She snorts in annoyance. "Really?"

"I have marked the passing of time quite differently of late." I look down. "But I would guess, to answer your question, that he has been... that is, it happened 50 years ago."

"Oh." She folds in on herself but does not break. "How?"

"He was chasing me, literally around the world, trying to get me to change my ways, and I refused. After some time, he found me on the brink of death in the clutches of Crazy Jane and asked her to release me to his paternal custody. And she agreed."

I falter at the end, and Tanya steps closer. "And?"

"And as Carlisle was walking toward me, she announced that someone had to pay for my sins and cho—chopped his head off."

Tanya's voice trembles. "Why didn't you stop her?"

"Because I was too focused on what Carlisle was shouting at me in his mind."

"Which was?"

"That he was here and would always protect me. That all would be well." My hands clench into fists despite my resolve to stay calm. "His words made no sense, and I was so angry with him for wasting them on me that I didn't think about Jane until it was too late."

"I see. So your recklessness killed him?"

I stuff my hands in my pockets. "Is there any other way to see it?"

"Is there not?" She turns away in silence, shaking her head. "Why did you come here?"

"I'm sorry?"

"You could have sent us this news anonymously or via telegram from anywhere in the world." Her back is still to me. "So why did you choose to tell me face-to-face?"

"Because... because you deserve no less."

Tanya nods, but I hear the hitch in her breathing as the first tears fall. I shove my hands in my pockets, knowing I have no right to comfort her. Her shoulders shake, her cries grow louder, and I stand there and swallow her grief.

It is the least I can do.

I expect her sisters to return, but they stay away, and I think that's for the best. Whatever is happening between Tanya and me is controlled, measured, and the addition of her sisters would only complicate matters in a way that would only hurt the three of them.

And I have caused enough discord among them for a lifetime.

She sniffles and straightens her back, facing me with clasped hands. "He loved you."

My shock is so severe she may as well have slapped me. "What?"

"Carlisle." She swipes her cheeks, a leftover human habit. "He loved you."

I shut my eyes and hang my head. "Yes."

"Why?"

I shake my head, unable to form words. Her observation breaks me open—for its truth and impossible mention in this terrible conversation—and I would collapse in a heap if not for the fear of forcing her to comfort me.

"Why is he upright, sister?" Kate soon arrives from the west, and I turn slightly away to hide my face. "Surely you could have felled him by now."

"Yes." Tanya's voice is devoid of inflection. "But I have yet to decide if that is wise."

Disappointment and disgust war in Kate's mind. "He affects you still?"

"Yes." Her tone warms almost imperceptibly. "But not the way you think."

"I think I have had enough of him and that Irina will never speak to you again if he remains here much longer." Kate spits in my general direction. "Please be done sooner than later."

"I will."

"And if he says anything of consequence about Carlisle, do let me know."

"I will."

"Beat it out of him if you must."

"I heard you. Now leave us," Tanya says with more authority. "We are nearly done."

A rush of wind carries Kate away, and I face Tanya with wide eyes. "Why didn't you share the details about Carlisle?"

"Sometimes the truth causes more harm than good." She smooths an errant blonde curl back into place. "And she has encountered enough pain for one day."

"You all have. And it is my deepest wish to end that pain for good."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean..." I take a tentative step forward, encouraged when she does not retreat. "There is another reason I came today, a question I need to ask, and I ask you to hear me out before you answer."

Her brows furrow, and she folds her arms. "As you wish."

I sigh in relief, closing my eyes. "I was an executioner at a stateside prison when she walked into my chamber..."

 ***** the last word *****

I tell Tanya everything.

About Isabella, her life, her story and how it intersected with mine.

I tell her how I felt, what I did, and what I have lost in the wake of Isabella's absence.

I tell her about Jamie and Vicki and how I danced in their blood.

And with halting, trembling breath, I tell her what I want.

Tanya listens without comment, eyes widening and hands clenching at turns. I barely meet her gaze as I talk, equally afraid of censure and sympathy. Though nothing matters more than her granting my request, should she refuse, I know there is a more sinister way to secure her cooperation.

But I hope it does not come to that.

"And this..." Tanya swallows past her emotions to finally speak again. "This is what you want?"

"Yes."

She shakes her head. "How can you ask that of me?"

"With all things considered, I suppose I thought you the best person to ask."

"But I..." She turns sharply away, incredulity informing her movements. "I cannot possibly do that."

"Because you don't think I deserve it?"

"Because I'm simply not capable of it." She throws up her hands and faces me. "And I cannot imagine what I would have done in the past to convince you otherwise."

"On the contrary, it is only my conduct I have considered." Shame colors my words. "Surely you can believe that."

Her lips part to reply, but she shuts them again, the walls of her mind dropping in surprise. She wants to talk to her sisters, to get their advice, but fears involving them in so unusual a situation. Their judgment would wound her too deeply.

"I am sorry," I say at length. "Perhaps I was foolish to believe this would be an easy thing for you to do."

"What would he say?" she asks. "What would Carlisle say if he knew what you were asking?"

I meet her eyes. "I think we both know the answer to that."

She holds my gaze unblinking, only looking away when her eyes begin to glaze over with unsheddable tears. "Yes, I suppose we do."

Tanya paces in front of me, her eyes on the horizon. The sun is fading from view, casting her in an ethereal glow. It is as if she is on fire because my words have set her ablaze.

"About a year after you left, I took a permanent lover," she says almost to herself. "Benjamin."

I don't know what to say and am unsure if a reply is even necessary.

"He was kind and gentle and the opposite of you in so many ways." She chuckles. "I thought him the perfect choice and expected us to love and lead together for the rest of time.

"But after only a few months together, his presence nearly tore our coven apart. Kate wanted to kill him, and Irina tried to on several occasions." She looks at me. "And after running him off, I realized I was never meant to mate and need no one at my side to be complete."

I nod, still believing silence is safer.

"You didn't break me," she says. "And despite Irina's reaction today, she is stronger than ever."

"I believe you."

"So I don't need to do this for my sake."

"That's good to know." I chance the truth. "But that's only part of why I ask. And not even the greatest part."

She hides her surprise well. "I see."

Her tone makes me anxious, so I retreat a bit. "You needn't decide right now. In fact, I could..."

"That won't be necessary. In fact, I have already decided."

My heart is in my throat. "And?"

She sighs. "Yes."

"Yes?"

"Yes, I will do it."

Relief and terror course through me at once, and I drop to my knees, choking on the moment. Tanya neither comments nor comforts me, and I appreciate the emotional space.

"What will you tell them?" I ask at length.

She scoffs. "Does it matter?"

"I suppose not."

"And you're sure she's worth the risk?" The concern in her voice shocks me. "That He is?"

"As sure as I have ever been about anything." I meet her eyes. "It is as Carlisle once said, _'We are nothing without someone to love.'_ And I wish to be with they who love me."

Tanya stares at me a long time. "I can respect that."

"Thank you. And I..." I hold out my hand to her. "I am sorry for what I did to you, Irina, and your family."

"I know." She looks down at my hand but does not take it. "I would not do this for any less."

I turn and take painful, measured steps away from her, uncertain of where or how far I'm going. I clear my mind of everything but the peace of knowing I have done what I came to do and it will soon be over.

To hopefully begin again.

At long last, I come to a place where I am ready to stop walking. I drop to my knees, clasp my hands in front of me, and hang my head.

"Thank you," I whisper again.

Tanya answers me in her mind. _"Are you sure this is what you want?"_

"Yes," I reply aloud. "Please."

" _Very well."_ She expels a heavy breath and takes off at a slow jog to catch up to me. Judging by her speed and the time it takes her to reach me, I have walked further than I thought.

As she comes closer, she calls out, "Any last words?"

I look up to the darkening sky, feeling a deep peace settle into my soul. "I am coming to you, My Lord and Father. As I receive your forgiveness, receive me now. Isabella, I hope you're right."

I hang my head once more, and a moment before Tanya reaches me, I hear her say, "Goodbye, Edward."

I wince as her arctic hands cradle my head and twist it clean off, interrupting my final thought.

Then there is nothing.

Blissful, peaceful nothing.

That is, until I open my eyes.

And then, suddenly, there is everything.

* * *

 **Well... that's the last chapter. Epilogue to follow in a week or so. What do you think?**


	30. Epilogue

**Disclaimer: Twi-stuff? Not mine.**

 **OMGosh, y'all... THANK YOU for your honest heartfelt responses to the last chapter. Your words and tears touched me so deeply, and I am honored by them both. Even those who didn't like the way things turned out, thank you for saying so respectfully. It is truly appreciated.**

 **I was so moved and excited by your responses that I couldn't wait another moment to share the epilogue! So now, please receive this brief glimpse into Edward's "everything."**

* * *

 **The Last Word – Epilogue**

I want to tell you what I see.

What I feel.

And especially what I now know.

I want to tell you everything, what it means to be here and experience this.

I must.

Even as I know I cannot.

(for the words do not exist)

(nor do I think they ever will)

But try I must, try I will, because you need to know what I now know.

I know the meaning of it all, of everything that made no sense before.

I know why Jamie did what he did, which I should have known all along.

That what he did to a mother and her infant son is hardly comparable to what I did to the 179 humans I killed in my lifetime—all of which occurred outside the prison walls—yet the motive is the same.

We hated ourselves and despised anyone who dared to love us. He did to the mother and her son what I did to Carlisle through those 179 people and felt quite justified in doing so.

(I'm sorry—181 people, for I also killed Jamie and Vicki.)

I felt myself superior to Jamie, but why? Were we not both murderers? Both deserving of the worst life had to offer? Moreover, I took his life and hers, eliminating any hope of their future redemption, so does that not make me worse than he?

This, you see, is why it matters what I feel.

Because I should feel guilty. I should feel sad, ashamed, and unworthy of being here.

But all I feel is love.

Warming, saturating, enveloping love pouring in and out of me from every possible place.

A love eclipsing my shame and rendering it immaterial. A love greater than life that is yet at its core.

This love is the reason I can think of my past without shame, that I can claim my place here without wondering if I deserve to be here.

I know I do not.

But He never expected that from me.

I needed only accept and believe.

For He had already done the rest.

Done it all.

For me.

ME.

At the thought, a bone-deep peace floods my body, coating me in a serenity I could never have imagined. It ebbs and flows with a jittery joy that makes me want to laugh uncontrollably at nothing at all, swaying my soul with an internal song it has always longed to sing.

And speaking of singing, there is music here.

Music everywhere.

Everything sings—the clouds, the trees, the colors, the breeze.

Sings songs of love and adoration, of tranquility and joy.

And the realization that this is now my home... and has always been... fills me with such gratitude and humility that I bow my head in reverence.

And I thank Him for making this possible.

Thank him for not giving up on me.

And thank her for barging into my life and refusing to let me waste it.

"You're here."

The voice comes from behind me, and I close my eyes to savor it before turning around. My heart swells to nearly overflowing at the sound of it, moisture stinging behind my lids, and it is a true wonder I do not cry.

For she is here.

Isabella is here.

When our gazes meet, she covers her mouth with both hands, joy emanating from her shining eyes. And she is... well, "beautiful" does not cover it. For this is a loveliness beyond the physical. Yes, her mahogany tresses are thick and flowing, her skin as radiant as her bright brown eyes. She is scant no more, and her heavenly body is that indeed.

But for all of that, the glow about her... within her... comes from a place so pure and impossible that it renders the rest of no consequence.

And the desire I have for her, the need to be closer and more connected, is unlike anything I've ever felt before. I faintly remember our earthly attraction, but it pales in comparison to this, to what I instinctively recognize between us now.

A precious bond we have a true eternity to explore and enjoy.

"Edward." Her bottom lip trembles despite her smile. "I knew you'd come."

"Did you?"

She nods, her lips mashed together. "Yes."

"I wondered." I take a step toward her. "And wandered a while."

"I know." Her voice is somehow cheerful. "But I never doubted you."

"No, you didn't." I cup her warm cheeks, afraid I might burst. "That's why I'm here."

"So you understand now?"

"I do. And I cannot believe there was a time when I didn't."

"Things aren't so clear down there. So much of that life gets in the way of what matters." She lays her hands atop mine. "But those days are gone."

"It seems hard to believe."

"But you'll get used to it." She brings our hands down, lacing one set of our fingers together. "I promise."

"And you are a woman of your word."

"Yes." She blesses me with an even brighter smile. "Thank you for helping me keep it."

We walk and talk of everything and nothing, yet the words are few. So much is already understood, natural. Time passes—I think—yet I feel as if I have just arrived.

Arrived in a place I was always destined to be.

"Have you seen him?" I ask, startled by my lack of hesitation. This is _the_ thought I'd assumed I would be loath to voice, yet it rolls off my tongue so easily.

How strange to live without the weight of shame!

"I have." She stops walking. "But I shall leave you to it."

I expect to be sad when she disappears, but there is only the certainty that I will see her again soon.

And the realization of what she just said.

"Edward."

I look up in shock, and it is my turn to cover my mouth with both hands. The sheer weight of this moment too much for me to bear, too much to have ever imagined...

"Edward." He comes closer, his eyes shining. "My beloved boy..."

I drop to my knees, and he is there, his paternal arms around me as they always been.

And I welcome his love as I have never done.

"Carlisle..." I weep openly, tears of joy pouring from every part of me. "Carlisle..."

I know not how long we remain so wrapped in each other nor do I care. Time seems not to matter here, and again I marvel at the differences between this place and the one I left behind.

"Let me see you." He pulls back, shaking his head with a smile. "You are everything I always knew you were."

"Thank you for loving me the way you did." Again the words pour out despite the continual bursting of my heart. "I would not be here had you not."

"I don't know about that." Carlisle looks beyond me with glowing eyes. "He would have found another way."

"Yes." I chuckle. "He's apparently stubborn like that."

"Ha!" Isabella appears beside me, that telling smirk about her lips. "You would know."

I raise an eyebrow. "And you wouldn't?"

"Of course I would." She taps the tip of my nose. "But we are not talking about me."

I laugh aloud. "Touché."

"Mama?" a young voice calls from behind me. "Is this him?"

I turn around to find a young boy of indeterminate age grinning up at me. Even had he not called her "Mama," the shape and shade of his eyes would have given his maternity away.

Isabella beams at us both. "Yes, it is!"

"Wow!" The boy wraps his arms around my waist, squeezing hard. "Hi, Edward!"

"Charlie!" His grip is stronger than I expect. "I am honored to meet you."

"Me too!" He looks back at Isabella. "Mama talks about you all the time."

"Does she?" I look at her while Carlisle chuckles. "And just what does she say?"

"That you were her best friend on Earth and she couldn't wait for us to meet."

"I feel the same way about her." I drop to one knee to be eye-level with him. "And she talked about you all the time when she was with me."

"I know. I was watching the whole time."

I blink. "You were?"

"Yes. But I saw what you couldn't see." He looks at Carlisle. "We both did."

"Is that so?"

"Oh, yes." Carlisle lays an affectionate hand on Charlie's shoulder. "We had our eyes on you both. And everything we saw was beautiful."

"Because when you see through these eyes," Isabella says. "You see what He sees as He sees it."

My heart burns at the thought of Him. "Where is He?"

"He's where He has always been." Carlisle lays his hand atop my heart. "But He is also everywhere else."

"You will see Him later," Isabella says. "But right now..."

Another song breaks forth in the distance, an audacious melody of glory and wonder, and its boldness renders me speechless. The words would be unintelligible to you, yet I already know the words. I turn to literally face the music, and my spirit adds its voice to the robust refrain.

And together we stand—the patient father, the sacrificed son, the stubborn mother, and the prodigal problem—enraptured in the presence of He who knit us together and made us a family. And together we join the eternal song, lost and broken no more.

Never again to utter a last word.

* * *

 **And those are the last words of "The Last Word."**

 **Thank you SO MUCH for taking this journey with me! Our RedEyedEd is finally at peace, and I would love to hear your thoughts on all of it.**

 **PS—You'll be happy to know (I hope) that I will soon be posting a new story! This is a canon-based AU version of New Moon... and if you're familiar with my work, yes, this would be my third, distinct AU New Moon fic. But this one is quite different than "Serenity's Prayer" and "A Love Worth Defending," s0 I hope you'll give it a shot!**

 **Bonus? This story is 75% complete, and I'll be updating twice a week! So make sure you click "Follow Author" and look for "What Have We Done" in a few weeks.**

 **(And I'm also working on the next chapter of "Eternity's Wish" as we speak.)**

 **Love y'all SO MUCH. It is a joy to write for readers like you.**

 **See you soon!**


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